Archive for May, 2009

Cultural Diversity and the Message

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

I am traveling around China this week. It is a combination of emotions that are both complex and voluminous and too numerous to quickly describe. I need an entire article to make sense of the things I’m seeing and will write one for the website. The blog is a quick glimpse into the process.

If you watch carefully, you are soon aware that the message and the language do not always coincide on signs and billboards. Perry and Maria, my traveling companions, remind me that an English translation is a direct translation from the Chinese character. Therefore, sometimes the syntax, if not the entire message, is a little skewed. Naturally, as I write this, none of the examples come to mind but I will look at the photos and pick a few.

The point is that as sellers, it is more important than ever to insure that our message is translating into the language that our buyers speak. I don’t mean that we have to speak Spanish to Spanish speakers or Dutch to the Dutch. I mean that we need to pay more attention to the language our buyers use to signal their interest. If we are working with a 20-something that simply doesn’t care about establishing a relationship, then working toward a relationship-centric middle ground is useless, and probably counterproductive.

Over the next few posts, I will try and tie this together with examples from my trip. It is very instructive and probably more important than even I believe it to be.

Happy Selling!

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What economy are you participating in?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

I have learned a valuable lesson from a customer. She decided to be a non-participant in this year’s depression/recession/contraction or whatever the heck we are in. It was a decision she made at a time when the news was doom and gloom, similar to last night.

I was curious how she could effect a positive change as an individual trying to turn a supertanker by blowing through a straw and she sang a chorus of “High Hopes!”

I spoke with her last night and she was reticent to tell me the results of her experiment. I said I understood, and that we don’t like to speak bad news, either. After a moment’s silence, she said, “You don’t really understand the problem. In our case, our sales are up about 26% over last year and profitability is up another 6% above normal. I don’t want my competitors hearing of this or they may target my accounts. I don’t want the competition.”

She elaborated that her salespeople changed tact a little and started advising their clients to be conservative but still advertise to come out winners after the dust settled. They started writing very small orders but wrote them constantly. Because the customer seems to be holding onto money longer, the rush orders are more numerous and the salespeople are selling at higher than normal margins because of the need to turn things fast. The clients do not seem to mind because the kicker is only about 5 to 10% more than normal.

She continued, “Because every order seems to be a “drop dead” rush, we are getting “list plus” on most sales. The higher profit makes up for the lower quantities. I hope this recession goes on for a long time!”

Holy smokes! Some good news! Whatever will we do?

I suggest that we stop looking at the front page of the paper and start helping our customers get through the next three months. Heck… we might just sell something!

Happy Selling!

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Just tell them what you DO

Friday, May 8th, 2009

A discussion has been going on since the early ‘50’s in the promotional products business. We freak out when we get THE QUESTION that haunts us to this very day. This age-old question, discussion and disagreement centers on how to answer, “So, what do you do, stranger?”

The industry has changed names a couple of times trying to better describe itself and it is a still incomplete explanation. We still tend to describe ourselves as people who sell stuff with a name on it, trying to “pretty it up” with rhetoric about “Help you build your business” or some other combination of words which, when whittled down to the significant letters, always comes back with the pertinent two… “B” and “S.”

And it is “BS” too. You are not your industry or your business. You are a person who DOES something. The important thing is not what you do but what you TELL people you do. This is so important that it may be worth spending a Saturday afternoon in a lawn chair with a beer, a brat, a cigar and a pad of paper and pen.(For women, I recommend a Drew Estate “Acid” brand infused aromatic Lonsdale. They are a nice comfortable and mild smoke with a pleasant aroma that won’t piss off the neighbors)

The “Elevator Speech” is an oft used communication class tool designed to tell your entire story in the time it takes for an elevator to go from the first floor to the sixth floor. About 28 seconds is all you have. The idea is to whittle down your sales pitch to a 28 (or less) second sound bite designed to have the listener say, “Cool !!! I want to know more!”

Yours will be different from mine. Last week, several of my friends separately raised this issue during phone calls. We didn’t come up with a good answer but we did come up with a solution. We agreed that this discussion is something that has to stop.

Oh, I don’t mean that we have to stop disagreeing about what we are and what we do. We must do that on a regular basis. However, have to stop discussing this question as though it means something important.

The Bottom Line here is that there is no good, better or best answer other than the one you come up with for your business and activity. For me, the answer, “I help people make more money using promotional items and advertising ideas” seems to fit my activity and personality.

If that is what you do too, then use this if it works for you. Otherwise, make up your own. It will be valid for the only people whose opinions matter… your and your customer or prospect. Decide what you want to say, say it, and then go on to the next sale. Focus on what is important and tell them what is important to you.

Sound simple? Yep, it does, because it is.

Happy Selling!

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