Geewiz News – May 2001                
www.geewiz.co.nz             www.richardgeewiz.com 

With Winter fast approaching in the southern hemisphere it is going be important to make sure that you’re marketing activity focuses on customers communicating  your point of difference, and also to give your customers  that warm feeling that you can help them out with some of your product and service offerings.

 A 2001 trend  is to focus on getting websites and e-commerce in the proper Marketing focus proportion.

Websites are good information sources and companies that are using them for that are really getting some good benefits of referring clients for information to their websites.  Then you can then successfully, having got your customer base looking at your website, move on to the interactive concepts, but remember always put a promise of response on your website as to how long it will take you to answer queries. Remember  to ask your customers what they want on your website…..they  are the users  not your staff or IT people.

It is exciting to note that we are now starting to see some real good marketing strategies being put into some of the consumable websites where people have to go in and purchase. The website owners are coming back to the concept that you have to recognise that it’s marketing that drives your business no matter how you service the customer.

E-Commerce :  remember this cannot  start until  your customers like your  website  information and then want to do more! The trust that has built up will allow  transactions  and payment.

Affiliates on your website?  Ever heard of it?  This is where you promote other people’s products/ services and programmes on your website and in turn, they promote you on their website and sometimes there is even a referral commission paid as well for business that is generated.  But one of the most important things if you are thinking about this is to make sure that any referrals that you pass on are going to be what your customer’s perceive you should be recommending.  Not just because you think it would be nice to earn some money selling some books - if your customers don’t think you should be selling books – don’t bother.

Sales  Tip - Innovating Prospecting

Here is an exciting way of locating new prospects, whereby somebody who is working in an existing company offers to exchange their list of business cards, contacts, etc, in exchange for your business card list of contacts of equivalent value customers.  An easy way, perhaps, to talk to your suppliers on some of your sales friends in your peer group as a way of seeing how could you build your prospecting business.

The next few months will see many seminars being promoted in NZ as the seminar season hits us from the months of May through to about September, so you need to be very careful about which seminars you go to and who’s going to be providing good value and information that you can take back to your business and actually use.  If you are in doubt, and you want to know something about any of the speakers, send me an e-mail and I can always check them out on the National Speakers Network and see whether I can tell you something about some of the speakers that will be presenting various seminars.

Just last month I was recognised by National Speakers Association of NZ with two accreditation qualifications – one being Accredited Speaking Member [ASM], and more importantly, a Accredited Professional Speaker [APS], as having demonstrated professionalism in speaking.  This is a world-wide recognition and I was very grateful to receive them  not many of us  in NZ  qualify!.

Customer Testimonials

Have you ever thought of asking your customers for a testimonial as part of your  proposal  offer?

Here’s how I saw a very enterprising business achieve testimonials from their clients – they put in their quotation for providing a personalised service – and that part of the terms of conditions was for the customer to write a testimonial comment on how they delivered their service – even if they only got 50% of the clients giving testimonials it was a very easy way to collect testimonial letters that could be used in your marketing, promotion, and also to make you feel good on those tough days.

Sales Management Meetings

Here’s a little tip for having your regular sales meeting when you’ve got reps all around the countryside – always hold it at exactly the same time on the same day but if the team members are away down country get them to phone in with a review or report that you can either put them on speaker phone or converse with them on how well they’ve done.

In the structure of your sales meeting always start off with wins of the week, and end with objectives for the following week, and during the course of the meeting you should always try and keep it looking positive, looking into the future and talking about what’s coming in the door rather than what’s gone out the door or any problems associated with the business.

Too many sales manager run meetings that I attend with sales teams are administration detail orientated and not motivating for those people present.  The sales team should walk out of the meeting flying through the door ready to talk to customers and help them close sales.

Sponsorships

Interested in some interesting sponsorships?

You might care to think about sponsoring some of the local community business excellence awards.  Most of the Enterprise Agencies have business enterprise awards which are very good ways of profiling your business in the local community and also a chance for you to say thanks to some of your customers and staff.  Not very expensive and they seem to deliver very well at the target audience of local businesses.

Contact your local Enterprise Agency for further details.

E-Marketing Tip

Want to drive customers to paying for products on your website?  Offer then a discounted incentive for payment only on the website and that gets them used to it and then of course, in 12 month’s time you won’t have to offer discounts because people will be used to paying on your website.  It’s working for me on my seminars and some of my products – you might like to try it.

Need to Make a Seminar Presentation?

Talk to an audience, have a staff speech customer evening – well here’s some “do’s & don’ts” if you are ever making a presentation –

Don’t tap or blow into the microphone to see if it’s working
Don’t take too long to get to the main point in the message
Do prepare by researching your audience – who you’re going to speak to so you  know whether they’re going to understand what you’re talking about and you end up speaking down to them or insulting their intelligence.
Don’t make too many references to sports in your presentations.
Don’t read from a script – take bullet points and talk naturally as in a conversation.
Don’t play with the microphone or any of your audio visual equipment during your presentation.
Don’t pace around the room – better to stay in one area and work that area for 10-15 mins then move to a different area.
Don’t spend too long and go over time.
Do when you get towards the end of your time-frame and you’ve still got a lot of points to make don’t rush them reduce the content  to key points instead
Do make sure when you get a question from the audience you repeat the question to everybody else to hear over the microphone.
Do always have a key unique selling point to finish up your presentation with.
If you are looking for ideas on how to do presentations give me a call or send me an e-mail, or I suggest you go into Marie Studdart’s website and that will give you some tips on how to make yourself confident in your presentation.

Question on Bartercard?

Is it good for your business?  I’m frequently asked this question by Companies saying ‘Should we get involved in Bartercard as a way of selling our products to a new customer grouping?  The answer is yes if it is going to be add on business to your existing business.  The answer is no if you are just starting to find a way for existing customers to pay you for goods and services in a different manner.  The recent rule of thumb that I tend to use with clients is that Bartercard should be no more than 10% of your turnover and it should be add-on turnover.

Bartercard is a fantastic network of people who spend money with each other, it is also a great referral organisation, and is also a good networking organisation as Bartercard members tend to look at spending with other Bartercard clients.  However, remember if you take sales of your products in Bartercard then you should spend the Bartercard in your own business. Personal expenditure is just “drawings”

Bartercard is certainly a method of transactions that is here to stay just like the internet and safe credit card transactions is used so it is worthwhile thinking about Bartercard and having the Bartercard directory to see whether it could help you target a group of innovative customers.

Interesting new book that you may have come across “Futurize Your Enterprise Business Strategy in the Age of the E-customer” by David Siegel.  Very easy to read, good examples, and some interesting thought provoking concepts as to how you can make e-business and e-customers more successful in the next couple of years.

David Siegel was the author of the best seller “Creating Killer Websites” which has subsequently been translated into 15 languages.  He’s written a number of other books and this new book of his is certainly worthwhile having a read to taking your thinking up to 2010.

I trust you have a successful preparation period  making sure that your products and services are appealing to your customers for the next few months while it gets a bit colder.  It’s that time to start building relationships with your clients with wonderful referral incentives, customer functions, customer events, and plain visiting your customers to make sure they know who you are.

Seminars  coming up that you can register  on my $ saving  website  or phone:

Prospecting  June 20   Auckland Employers & Manufacturers   09 367 0950
Prospecting/ Telemarketing/ Web Marketing  June 25  Wellington Chamber  04 914 6500
Sales Basics 1 & 2  June 27  Auckland Chamber  09 580 1470
Sales & Business  Summit : 5 world beater International  speakers , 1 Day   to change your business life AK June 25, Wn June 26, ChCh June 27      contact Ph: PR Sales   on Ph 0508 PROFIT    or 09 580 0146
Sales & You  3 day seminar  on sales skills, everything!  July 23-25 Auckland  Ph 0800 GEEWIZ
Sales Management   July 17th  Auckland  Chamber  09 580 1470
Professional Media selling:  July  12th    Specifically for media  reps  Ph 0800 GEEWIZ
Sales Basics/ Everything you need to know to be a Supervisor:  July 31 Wn Chamber 04 9146500
Selling Professional services/Major account development / Creating Customer loyalty  plans
  Aug 1st  ChCh Chamber03 366 5096
Networking / Prospecting / Handling awkward customers  15/16  Aug  Tauranga  Chamber 07 577 9823

Recommendations :
 Attend the “Sales & Business Summit”  , for stimulating  international ideas for your business
 Looking for  “Wrought Iron Gates”  for your entrance : contact  Iron Things  Ph 09  412 8181
 Need at great friendly hotel to stay at in Wellington, try the Portland Hotel in Thorndon Ph 04 473 2208
 My Marketing  book  published  last year  in October  has just had its first FREE  Update  sent to  book purchasers with  news about the latest  trends in E Commerce/  and Branding  plus the  buzz words  used in marketing.....with the book you get  updates  2-3 times per year  plus  FREE  E Mail   strategy  advice  while you own the book. To check out the details see my web site ,order online too!  or  ring Brookers  the publishers  Ph 0800 642 222
 The DMA  Conference Marketing Today  June 25/26 , Auckland for the latest in Direct marketing  strategies, register online at www.marketingtoday.co.nz

Some recent client success  stories:

Printing  company  restructured   their sales reps  days into  mornings  in office  reactive to customers and afternoons  out calling on accounts using the A B C  priorities, showed  20% more new business  in the first month.

Hotel  with  awareness  of location problem  created a  USP “ Our team’s challenge to exceed  your expectations”  and trained staff  to deliver more than expected  and  achieved a noticeable  attitude improvement,  and bookings, plus forward sold out their conference facility  for  two months, and is now  completing the task with a total re branding of their image.

Vietnam  based  furniture manufacturer  took over  Australian  distributor  with  sales problems and opened replacement sales agencies in all  states  with resulting  1000% increase in  sales and most importantly  better   distribution of product, and  now  has shipped  20 containers of product into Australia  in last  3 months, all created from NZ Pine, turned into furniture by Vietnam labour and exported  to Aust  /NZ /England  and Germany as well.

Security company  prospected  City council  for  patrol work  at city parks and reserves  ended up with   getting  a tender for all of  the city parks etc and  buildings  plus  more  because  City council manager had not seen or heard from the  current other  supplier  for 12  months  so felt  time to look around for a more attentive    relationship supplier.

Innovative psychologist  has created  a new website  GOLFTIPS.COM where you can improve your mental  attitude to the game of golf.....  with on line learning courses  and CD’s  plus one on one counselling  for those  with  the desire to win!

BNI  the networking organisation that is storming NZ business  now operates in AK/Wn/Chch  with  over 25  clubs all passing referrals  to each other each week,  so many clients I have recommended to join have gained new business  from BNI even on their first meeting!

New Gallery  for New Zealand images  “Out there” shed 24 Princes wharf  Auckland has  had great success  in selling  only NZ images/ photos  for  homes and offices...www.outthere.co.nz. Each image has a story why the  photographer  created the image...fabulous NZ !

Kind regards,  Richard Gee. 

Email me at richard@geewiz.co.nz  or   richard@richardgeewiz.com or richardgee@compuserve.com. Please note that your inclusion on this email newsletter list has my personal guarantee that your name or contact  details will not be provided to anyone else, and if you require  removal  just send me a email for immediate action.

Richard P Gee
Marketing Consultant, Training Seminars, Conference speaker, Interactive Author