The Five Most Common Mistakes made with Facebook Marketing and how to avoid them

I believe it was around noon on September 14^th 2012 on the second floor of building 17, Facebook headquarters. The team in charge of Facebook’s growth along with Mark Zuckerberg and his top bods were all gathered around a large screen in one of the common areas watching as the numbers ran up about  a thousand users per minute: 999,980,000 … 999,990,000 … 1,000,000,000. Facebook had just registered one billion users that’s one seventh of the earth’s population. With that many users it would be somewhat foolish not to have some sort of Facebook marketing strategy. However, as with any other marketing activity mistakes can and in most cases inevitably are made. Some are simple mistakes that may have little or no adverse effect on your page; others are quite simply inexcusable and could have a detrimental effect on your page for example negative comments and loss of your fans. These six mistakes have been compiled to ensure your Facebook marketing campaign stays right side up.

Buying Facebook Likes

When I talk about buying Facebook likes I am not talking about the promote your post button or Facebook Ads these can actually be a great way of getting relevant targeted fans to your page. What I am actually talking about is websites that will guarantee to get you 10’000 likes for £90.00 for example. Not only is this wrong but can also damage your page. When we set Facebook pages up we face a sad reality; there isn’t hundreds of thousands of people waiting for us to publish our page so they can flock to it to like it and start engaging. Once you have exhausted all your Facebook friends and current clients and you have 40 likes it can be extremely tempting to click the buy button on one of the above websites. The problem is you are wasting your money. The sad reality is you are paying for a service to load your Facebook page with likes from fake profiles, you will never hear from these people again, they don’t exsist. Also if you will never hear from your 10’000 likes the statistic just under your profile picture called talking about this will be extremely low in comparison to your likes. Imagine if you see 10’000 likes and 1 person talking about this it could be very off-putting to any new potential fans as they may think that you are posting uninteresting or boring content.

How to avoid

Quite simple really don’t push the buy button instead try growing your pages profile organically buy adding like buttons to your website and blogs, try directing your Twitter following to your page then  your ”talking about this” statistic should remain high. Alternatively Facebook has inbuilt tools that can help boost your page or posts. For a small fee, usually smaller than that of buying likes you can boost your posts and advertise your page out to a wider audience, the best thing about this is it is targeted relevant traffic.

Posting Irrelevant Content or Blatantly Promoting your own Product or Service

This is one of my biggest bug bears with Facebook marketing, pages that do nothing but push their products and services in our faces. Facebook is a social platform where people come on to share and talk about common interests. I’m sure you don’t like to be spammed, I’m sure you find it annoying and intrusive. Your fans will feel exactly the same as you. If all you post is information on your company and products you will soon turn fans off and may even find that fans are starting to “unlike” your page. In the same breath it is important to say that another thing that can drive your fans berserk is posting totally irrelevant content usually photos of grumpy cats or a certain wrestler and baby combination. Yes, it may get some engagement. However, it can come at a cost, this type of post is likely to receive some negative comments and can sometimes cost you some of your most loyal fans.

How to Avoid

Post regularly, if you have a blog share your posts but also share other blog posts and articles you find interesting, it shows that you are not just trying to point people to your pages all the time and could win you some more fans that way. Post Infographics and other highly sharable content. And remember Facebook is a social platform so try and insert a bit of fun there as well so funny cartoons, pictures or videos that are relevant to your fans

Posting Targeted Content to All Your Fans

When your fans see something from you posted in their newsfeed they want it to provide some sort of value to them. Imagine their dismay if they aren’t included in the offer and feel they are missing out on something they would actually enjoy taking part in. It’s like when you see adverts for telephone/broadband providers even banks advertising their services great low prices of high interest rates and when you read the small print it’s “brand new customers only”. I don’t know about you but when I see that I feel like hang on I’ve been a loyal customer for X amount of time and you’re not going to offer me the same rates as you are offering someone you don’t know from Adam. The same can be said for your loyal Facebook fans and posting a targeted offer to all your fans could wind them up and instigate negative comments.

How to Avoid

If you are going to post something to a targeted audience make sure you use Facebook’s targeting feature. If you don’t, you’re likely to disappoint your fans (like I was) or annoy them.  It’s really simple to do.

Failing to delete the URL in a Link Type Post

Agreed doing this is not going to have a detrimental effect on your Facebook following but you know what I mean. When you type a link into a status a big preview box pops up, you can now delete the URL and the preview box will remain. Okay so it’s not the end of the world if you don’t but I am of the opinion that although we are going to have a bit of fun on the page it should always remain professional and leaving the URL there when it isn’t needed just looks sloppy in my opinion.

How to Avoid

Very simple really as soon as the preview box appears delete the URL a link type post

Failing to respond to Users Posts/Comments

So getting down to it the whole point of having a Facebook marketing campaign is to engage with people within our niche and potential clients. It never ceases to amaze me when I see that people spend so much time working out what they are going to share and finally someone posts a comment and it goes completely unacknowledged. Let’s face it, if a potential customer walked into your shop or showroom and started talking to you, you wouldn’t ignore them would you? Remember it is so easy to click “Unlike”

How to Avoid

Treat your Facebook following as you would treat any prospect or customer if someone is kind enough to comment or share one of your posts be sure to acknowledge them even if it is just to say thank you.

So in conclusion Facebook can be a great marketing tool if used correctly by growing your fan base organically or by targeted ads and boosting posts, post relevant and highly shareable content and more importantly try and inject some fun (relevant fun of course). Watch out for the blog on building a large Facebook fan base. Bye for now.

Happy Selling

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – helping you successfully grow your business through powerful sales and marketing techniques – Sames and Marketing Coach/Mentor

The Six Golden Rules for an Awesome Profile on LinkedIn

The old cliché “you never get a second chance to make a good first impression” is as poignant today as it has ever been.

LinkedIn, the social media platform that allows you to build and engage with a professional network to assist you in growing your business now has over two hundred million members; and any business or sales professional looking to carve out a niche within their industry and stand out from the crowd should have an arm within their marketing plan devoted to LinkedIn. Top of the agenda for this plan should be to create a killer profile, why? Your profile is an online representation of yourself. You wouldn’t walk into a business networking event wearing jeans, a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, you would take great care in making sure you present yourself professionally both in attire and conversation. The same amount of care should be taken over your LinkedIn profile as a bad profile can turn potential connections and customers away and not give it a second look. Follow these golden rules and create a killer profile that will ensure you stand out from the crowd.

Golden Rule Number 1 – Profile Picture

Firstly, ideally your profile picture should be a picture of you not your company logo, save that for your company page if you have one. Remember people buy people. The picture itself should be a professional looking headshot or business portrait, save the pictures of you looking extremely tanned in a bar in Magaluf for Facebook and Twitter, always remember you are trying to portray a professional image here.

Golden Rule Number 2 – Headline

Your profiles headline is the first opportunity to hook someone into your profile and show them how you could add value to their business. It also gives you the opportunity to add some keywords into your profile to ensure you turn up in searches. So instead of putting the usual position within a company try what you are ► how you add value ► what you do (add in some keywords here). So, instead of; James Randle – Managing Director – Advanced Corporate Training. I use James Randle – Marketing Strategist ► Showing you how to increase business using powerful marketing techniques ► Sales|Marketing Coach.  You get 120 characters so have a play and find something that works for you. If you like the bullet points the easiest way to get them is to copy and paste the ones that you like off someone else’s profile.

Golden Rule Number 3 – Contact Info

In this section you can not only list your contact information but also point people to great content on your website using interesting hooks. Yet the amount of profiles where this section is practically empty is unreal. Firstly fill out all the usual address, telephone number and email address. There is also section for you to put an instant messaging account there like Skype and also your Twitter account. When it comes to your website, you are allowed to put in three hyperlinks, use them all. Don’t just use your homepage, use interesting and valuable content from your website like product information or blogs and direct your connections there. When adding the link always select ‘other’ in the website type box. You can then add an interesting hook. For example, getting your website to page 1 takes connections to details of my SEO course, or some great marketing tips will take my connections to my blog. Finally it’s always good to customise the URL to your public profile. To do this when editing your profile, you’ll notice just below your profile picture is the URL to your public profile, click edit and it will take you to your public profile. If you go to the box on the right hand side of the screen and scroll to the bottom, there is a box entitled your public profile URL. Click customise and change it to your name, if that is taken try your name and what you do.

Golden Rule Number 4 – Summary

Your summary is your chance to showcase your skills and value to potential customers, that being said try not to word it the same as you would the introduction to your C.V. You need to hook viewers into your summary and keep them reading. Try opening with an intriguing question, statement or common problem. Then go on to explain how you can help or solve the problem you suggested while adding value to any potential customers business. Also a good time to name drop a bit here as well, if there is any impressive customers you have done business with make sure you mention them here. List you’re specialties as well and don’t forget to insert some keywords into your specialties list. Finally always finish with something personal, a hobby or interest that you take part in, this gives your summary a personal feel and will allow viewers to relate to you on a social level.

Golden Rule Number 5 – Experience

This is another chance to show off your skills and expertise but also this gives you a chance to show off your experience and if you can get previous employers or customers to comment on your previous positions by way of recommendation it is social proof that you can do what you say you can do. Make sure your past experience reflects on what you are doing now, your previous positions should build on each other to show off your expertise and experience within your chosen niche. Again try to make it as interesting as possible for your reader.

Golden Rule Number 6 – Endorsements and Recommendations

Endorsements and recommendations are social proof that you can do what you are claiming to be able to do. Endorsements are good your customers or previous employers can endorse your expertise.  The only problem I see with endorsements is that you sometimes receive endorsements from people who you have never done business with or in some cases have never even met in the hope that you will endorse them back. In my opinion nothing beats a recommendation so if you have done some work for one of your LinkedIn connections don’t forget to ask for an endorsement. Don’t just send a recommendation request to your connection, personalise it and get the recommendation you want. For example I am a training provider and this is the recommendation request I send;

Thanks for coming along to the training on Friday. Hope it was useful? If so, would you be able to write a quick recommendation? Please write whatever you like but, if you’re stuck, the following are just as pointers:

• Did you take away some useful action steps that you can implement into your business straight away?
• Did you enjoy the training?
• Do you think other sales and marketing professionals could benefit from my training?

Any questions, please ask. Speak soon!

Summary

In summary LinkedIn is an excellent sales and marketing tool if used in the correct way starting with your profile, so follow the steps above to make your profile the best you can. There are lots of other features you can put into your profile like places where you can upload your publications, honors and awards, courses and even test scores; these can all help improve your viewers experience. Also something that LinkedIn are rolling out at the moment is the ability to upload PDF documents into your summary. I hope you have found these tips useful and that you can now implement them into your own LinkedIn profile, if you haven’t already done so.

Happy Selling.

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – helping you successfully grow your business through powerful sales and marketing techniques – Sames and Marketing Coach/Mentor

The Importance of your Existing Customers

I’d like to use this blog to take a few minutes and go over the importance of keeping in contact with your existing customers.

A very common question I get asked is as follows; we are constantly touting for new business, prospecting via the telephone and other lead generation techniques, however, we are still failing to reach our targets, what can we do to overcome this? I always like to answer this question with another question; what do you do with your existing customers, have you got the most you can out of them? Silence usually follows this question.

You see the norm in pretty much every business I’ve helped out seems to be, well they’re a client now, when they want something they’ll come back to us. Will they, really, are you sure about that? What I mean is why shouldn’t we take a portion out of our day that we are spent prospecting, probably cold calling and make some calls to our existing customers.

I like to follow this up with an inspiring story from a book I read called The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes, if you enjoy reading this type of literature, this book is a must read.

Chet goes onto explain how he was consulting a carpet cleaning company that had worked extremely hard on new business and gained 30’000 clients.

These clients on average had their carpets cleaned once every three years, so they were making around 10’000 sales per year. When the consultant first got to work with the company the perception was people will have their carpets cleaned when they are dirty and need to be cleaned.

However, The consultant had come accross some government data to say that carpets act like a giant filter, capturing dust, dirt, pollen, dust mites and their waste etc. He’d also found a study suggesting that when carpets are removed from a building people get sick four times more often. However, like any normal filter carpets become saturated, creating the need for professional cleaning as not even daily vacuuming gets rid of the embedded bacteria.

So working with the CEO of the company, they came up with  something called the gold service that they would trial on their existing customers, using the market data they had found as a hook and sell it on the basis of the customer having their carpets cleaned twice per year.

They worked out a script and gave it to the top performing sales person to trial. Chet left that night feeling as though he had really delivered for the company. He returned a week later to see how the sales person had got on; and this is how it went;

• Chet: So how did it go?
• Sales Person: It didn’t work
• Chet: It didn’t work?
• Sales Person: No. It didn’t work.
• Chet: Well how many people did you offer it to?
• Sales Person: I offered it to ten people
• Chet: And nobody brought it?
• Sales Person: No two people brought it.

You see to the sales person eight out of ten no’s on a new service should be deemed a failure, but let’s crunch the numbers.

Two people out of the ten brought the gold service; the company had 30’000 clients buying once every three years, that’s about 10’000 sales per year. Now imagine an extra 6000 (a mere 20%) buying twice per year.

What does this mean for the business; it’s an enormous increase in turnover. Had it been left to the sales person the gold scheme would have been left on the shelf gathering dust.

The moral of the story here folks is don’t forget your existing clients. Do a SWOT analysis and see if you can come up with a new product or service that would see them buying from you more frequently.

Or, just do a simple database cleanse. Ring all of your clients, inform them you are doing a database cleanse and that you want to make sure that you still have the correct details for them, go through their details and while you’ve got them on the phone ask them if there is anything you can do to assist them at the moment.

You would be surprised the amount of people that would say “well actually, since you ask, yes”.

Happy Selling

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – helping you successfully grow your business through powerful sales and marketing techniques – Sames and Marketing Coach/Mentor

Selling via your Non-Sales People

Sales Person; just that name can conjure up a number of negative words with some customers; pushy, sly, shady, doesn’t listen, the list is endless, all of which are mendacious statements when it comes to a true sales professional. However, that won’t stop your customers or prospects putting their guard up when talking to them. So how and indeed why should we encourage our non-sales people to listen out for those all important buying signals.

Your non-sales staff i.e. maintenance staff, after sales and delivery people often get closer to your customers than your sales people, they could therefore report excellent sales opportunities back to you!

Customers rightly or wrongly assume that your after sales personnel (fitters, service engineers, delivery people etc) simply wish to do their jobs and have no commercial interest unlike your sales people. In other words customer expects more objective information from them. So, how can we use this to our advantage? Well, did you know that a great many sales opportunities are left unexploited simply because delivery people and fitters may simply shrug their shoulders when a customer asks for information on about prices, delivery terms and product advantages and the like. “Don’t ask me, you need to ask a sales rep” is the usual response, when the buying signal was so strong and the customer was hot to trot, the sale has simply been lost before we even get a chance to look at it.

All kinds of information can betray buying intentions, wear and tear, inadequate production capacity, machinery no longer meeting the requirements, deliveries by competitors etc. Customers often ask apparently “innocent” questions, however, these questions are normally disguised in a non-committal package, as this is felt to be the least threatening. For example

I heard you also offer maintenance contracts; do you think that would be something for me? What is the delivery term for a new boiler? It’s not easy to find that type of washer is it? Do you think that heater will last through winter?

In actual fact the customer is actually saying if you can convince me of the benefits of such a maintenance contract, I’m your man. I’m interested in a new boiler. I’m thinking of getting rid of my antiquated washer. If my heater gives out this winter – which is likely to happen – I’ll buy a new one this time. So to make the most of these opportunities, two conditions should be met, 1) alertness and 2)systematic reporting.

Keeping eyes and ears open: make your maintenance staff, delivery staff etc alert to buying signals, demonstrate how customers are inadvertently telling you what they really want, maybe through half a days sales training. Next, provide these personnel with written information on your products, delivery terms and the like. They will then be able to answer any questions about your products efficiently and effectively.

Insist on systematic reporting: For reporting, use a form that is to be completed by all technical staff after one of their customer calls. One of the fields within this form could be to establish whether further contact is needed. All reports should be processed by a coordinator. Informal reporting is possible as well through weekly or monthly breakfast meetings, or during an informal Friday afternoon meeting where both sales people and technical people sit down and swap notes.

In addition to product information, also give your technical staff an order list for products that need to be replaced regularly, for example toner cassettes, belts, seals and the like. Your customer will appreciate their offer to deliver these products during their next call.

Motivation: Of course it is not easy to maintain such a feedback system on a permanent basis. However, you can motivate your technical staff by informing them that the information they provide boosts sales and turnover. You can even give your technical staff an extra incentive by offering them a bonus or commission based on the sale.

In summary convince your technical staff that innocuous questions or remarks by customers often conceal real buying intentions  If you monitor these opportunities systematically and reward your personnel, this may boost your turnover considerably

Happy Selling

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – helping you successfully grow your business through powerful sales and marketing techniques – Sames and Marketing Coach/Mentor

 

Getting Past the Gatekeeper

It is inevitable within our career as sales professionals to come across these people every day in our working life; The Gatekeepers, these are the people with the keys to let you through to talk to the real decision makers. In other words the receptionists, personal assistants, secretaries and so on. These are the people whose job, well part of it anyway, is to stop us getting through. Please remember that last sentence the next time you come across a particularly ‘tricky’ one, it’s nothing personal, they’re just doing their job, the same as you. The usual response to that statement is thus; if it is their job to stop them from getting through to the decision maker, how are we supposed to get through to them? Well as in sales the same can be said for the gatekeeper; some are better at their job than others! It is our job to be flexible and change our style when faced with those ‘tricky’ situations. The following tips will help you improve your telephone technique and ensure you don’t trip at the first hurdle.

1.     The no pressure information call

This is a particularly good technique I use if a) I don’t know the name of the decision maker or b) I am targeting small to medium sized enterprises where the managing director themselves could pick up the phone, the last thing I want to do is offend them by asking to speak to the managing director or owner of the business. They may get the feeling that I assume that they are ‘just a receptionist’, important to say at this point that I never think that, and neither should you as I’ll outline later. So try this it works around 98% of the time. Simply ring up the company and whoever answers the phone say this; “Hi, I’m hoping you might be able to help me out, I would like to send one of my brochures to the person responsible for **insert your product or service** and I was just wondering who I would make it out to”. As I said 98% of the time you will get the name of the person you will need to speak to. Depending how confident you are you could take it to the next level and ask if that person would prefer to receive your brochure through the post or by email, if they say post it’s fine, if they say email, great, not only do you have a contact name, you now have their email address as well. Whatever you do though, at this point do not ask if you can be put through to them. Simply thank the person for their time and do what you said you were going to do and send one of your brochures through to the decision maker. You are then in a position to make a follow up call a few days later armed with the name of the person you need to ask for.

2.     Getting Put Through to the Decision Maker

So either you know whom you need to speak to in advance or you have carried out tip one, either way you are now armed with a contact name and you should have sent them some information albeit a brochure or marketing letter. One tip I always like to insert here is at the end of your initial email or letter containing your brochure, one of the final sentences should read I will call you shortly to see how we can improve on your current **insert product or service here**. Or something along those lines as long as you inform your prospect that you will be in contact soon, I always get a few blank stares when I tell people this, it really doesn’t matter if your prospect reads what you sent them or simply bins/deletes it, because you are going to ring them and it’s a good conversation starter but that is for another time.  As for now, when you call;

1. The worst thing you can do is lie to the gatekeeper. Don’t tell them you have spoken to the prospect before if in actual fact you have not. Not only will this rile the gatekeeper, but they will try and put you through to the prospect based on the lie you just told, nine times out of ten it will be found out putting you on the back foot when talking to your prospect.
2. Plan, don’t script. When you script your call you inevitably write down what you are going to say, this then comes across in your voice. The gate keeper will lose interest most of the time; and then will come the time when something unexpected happens or the gatekeeper says something that your script doesn’t cover you will be tripping over your own words to try and answer them sounding quite unprofessional. Plan what you want to say but also try to work out the answers to all the questions the gate keeper is likely to ask. For example “is Mr Decision Maker expecting your call”? If you have followed tip one you don’t have to lie to get round this, your answer would simply and confidently be “yes, based on the information I provided them with”.
3. Try to sound known to the prospect. It takes practise and confidence to do this effectively. However, when calling instead of saying “hello, is Mr Decision Maker available”, that sounds instantly like a sales call. Try this, when a person answers they usually tell you their name take note of their name and remember you should already know the decision makers name from tip one. Say “Hello Sarah, it’s James here from ****** is Tom in the office”? I have always stated where I am calling from in the first sentence, why? It gives the gatekeeper less to do, and should nip the interrogation process in the bud straight away, where are you calling from? What’s it regarding? And so on.
4. Practise adding a downward inflexion to your voice. Most of the cold calls I ever receive or train on the callers add an upper inflexion. This turns a statement into a question, which will invite questions and objections from the gatekeeper. It also sounds unconfident, therefore not senior and more likely a sales call. Adding a downward inflexion turns a statement into an order. You will need to practise this to do so and still sound polite. “Hello Sarah, It’s James from ****** if you could let Tom know I’m on the line thank you” (going down). Always end this technique with a polite thank you.
5. Don’t give too much information or attempt to sell to the gatekeeper, if you do you invite objections such as; we already have a supplier, we’re not looking for anything like that at the moment, we have no budget at the moment. Open with a statement similar to above and only answer the questions asked of you. “Is he expecting your call”? Answered above. “Will he know what it is regarding”? You can answer this with the same statement “yes, based on the information I sent through”. If they ask “what is it regarding” try not to say the information I sent to them. Try to come up with a sentence that will spark your prospects interest when repeated to them to ensure you get through.

3.     The Gatekeeper Is Not Your Enemy

Just remember that the gatekeeper is just doing their job. Part of that job is managing the demands on the decision maker’s time. Seeing them as the enemy creates a psychological barrier that you have made yourself that will be difficult if not impossible to break down. If you don’t get put through first time, or they ask you to send them the information don’t fret. Do what you’re asked and start to build a rapport with the gatekeeper. Now I’m not saying here that you need to become their best friend. Simply being polite, don’t be rude if they don’t put you through. If they have told you to call back at a certain time ensure that you do to build your credibility. Remember these people are a wealth of knowledge about the decision maker and the business itself, which is why I never think of them as just a receptionist, they hear everything that is going on within the office. If you remain polite, courteous and credible the next time the decision maker is looking for suppliers in your industry they may tell them about you, or the next time you call they will tell when he is looking to change, then you will get your chance.

I hope these tips are of use to you and I know you will be able to implement them into your business right away. You may need to change your current habits, but to quote sales author Frank Rumbauskas “The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, so stop the insanity”.

Happy Selling

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – helping you successfully grow your business through powerful sales and marketing techniques – Sames and Marketing Coach/Mentor

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow proposed his psychology theory, the Hierarchy of Needs, in 1943, and it is frequently used in the business world in a number of ways, particularly in functions that deal with people. For example, human resources uses the ideas in developing employment plans, marketing uses the ideas in advertising and promotion, and sales uses them to uncover a customer’s motivation for buying.

To gain a better understanding of how Maslow’s concepts apply in today’s business environment, it’s important to first understand what the Hierarchy of Needs is. The concept is most often demonstrated with a pyramid that illustrates each need and its relative importance. The base of the pyramid consists of the most basic needs, while more complex human needs make up the top of the structure.

Basic physical requirements such as water, food, sleep and warmth are at the bottom of the pyramid, and once those needs are satisfied, an individual can move to the next level of need which is safety and security. As people satisfy each level of need, increasingly more complex needs are introduced which are also more social and psychological. For example, we move from the need for friendship, intimacy and love to the need for self-esteem and having feelings of accomplishment being the primary needs to be addressed.

Categorizing a Human’s Needs

There are five levels on the pyramid. The base is physiological needs which we’ve already discussed. But it’s important to remember that unless these needs are met, nothing else matters. Safety and Security needs are the next level of the pyramid, and although they are important for survival, they aren’t nearly as crucial as physiological needs. Some examples of safety and security needs include shelter from the environment, safe neighbourhoods and a steady means of income.

The third level in the pyramid is social needs or the need to belong and be liked or loved. The social level addresses the need for companionship and acceptance.  Next up on the pyramid are the esteem needs. Once the first three types of needs are satisfied, the need for esteem is increasingly vital. This need includes anything that creates personal worth, social recognition, self-esteem and accomplishment.

Finally, at the top of the pyramid are the self-actualizing needs. People who are self-actualizing are concerned with personal growth and are less concerned with the opinions of others.

Maslow classified the five levels of needs into two categories.

1. Deficiency needs that include the physiological, security, social and esteem needs
2. Growth needs are different in that they don’t stem from a lack of something. Instead they stem from a desire to grow as a person

Impact on Management & Business

Maslow’s theory has some important considerations for management, including insights into the best way to motivate employees, vendors, clients and customers. For example, managers can use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to find and create ways to motivate employees by carefully considering how needs play into job design, compensation, management style and so forth.

For example, managers can harness the power of physiological needs by providing wages that are sufficient for employees to purchase their basic needs. Safety needs can be addressed by providing job security, retirement benefits and a safe working environment. Social needs are addressed by developing a team atmosphere, making sure that employees know that they are a part of something bigger and they can count on their team members just as their team members should be able to count on them.

From a product development, sales and marketing perspective, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is just as legitimate. Companies can develop products to help satisfy particular needs, and they can also focus on particular needs as a way to market and sell something. For example, a clothing manufacturer can focus on physiological needs such as the need to be protected from the environment and to be warm. And they can also focus on esteem and self-actualization needs by producing garments that improve a person’s self-esteem or self-perception and give them the confidence to pursue their self-actualization needs.

I hope you have found this useful.

Happy Selling

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – Helping you successfully grow your business through powerful marketing techniques – Sales & Marketing Coach/Mentor

 

Performing a SWOT Analysis on your Business

Discover New Opportunities, Manage and Eliminate Threats

SWOT is a really useful technique for understanding your strengths and weaknesses as a business; and for identifying opportunities open to you and the threats that you will face. When used in a business context, a SWOT analysis can help you carve a niche in your market in a way that best takes advantage of your talent and expertise.

Any business objective and goal setting should be completed after the SWOT analysis has been done; this allows achievable goals and objectives to be set for your organisation. However, before you carry out your analysis it is best practise to have completed all of the features and benefits for each of your products and services. Features and benefits focuses on each product or service what features it has and then what that means to the customer i.e. the benefit, because let’s face it that is

all the customer cares about. So, for example;

Once you have completed all of the features and benefits for each of your products or services you are then ready to complete your SWOT analysis; and remember;

• Strengths: Character of the business that gives it an advantage over others.
• Weaknesses: Characteristics of the business that put it at a disadvantage in relation to others.
• Opportunities: External chances to improve performance (e.g. make greater profits/introduce a new product line)
• Threats: External elements that could cause problems or trouble for your business

Here is the explanation in more detail;

How to Use a SWOT Analysis

Originated by Albert S Humphrey in the 1960’s, SWOT Analysis is as useful now as it was then. You can use it in two ways – as a simple icebreaker helping people get together to “kick off” strategy formulation, or in a more sophisticated way as a serious strategy tool.

 Strengths:

• What advantages does your organization have?
• What do you do better than anyone else?
• What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others can’t?
• What do people in your market see as your strengths?
• What factors mean that you “get the sale”?
• What is your organization’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

Consider your strengths from both an internal perspective, and from the point of view of your customers and people in your market. Also, if you’re having any difficulty identifying strengths, try writing down a list of your organization’s characteristics. Some of these will hopefully be strengths! When looking at your strengths, think about them in relation to your competitors. For example, if all of your competitors provide high quality products, then a high quality production process is not a strength in your organization’s market, it’s a necessity.

Weaknesses:

• What could you improve?
• What should you avoid?
• What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses?
• What factors lose you sales?

Again, consider this from an internal and external basis: Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you don’t see? Are your competitors doing any better than you? It’s best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

Opportunities:

• What good opportunities can you spot?
• What interesting trends are you aware of?
• Useful opportunities can come from such things as:
  • Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale.
  • Changes in government policy related to your field
  • Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on.
  • Local events.

A useful approach when looking at opportunities is to look at your strengths and ask yourself whether these open up any opportunities. Alternatively, look at your weaknesses and ask yourself whether you could open up opportunities by eliminating them.

Threats:

• What obstacles do you face?
• What are your competitors doing?
• Are quality standards or specifications for your job, products or services changing?
• Is changing technology threatening your position?
• Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
• Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?

So let’s put this into a real life example situation; a start-up small IT consultancy business might draw up the following SWOT Analysis:

As a result of their SWOT Analysis, the consultancy may decide to specialize in rapid response, good value services to local businesses and local government. Marketing would be in selected local.

publications to get the greatest possible market presence for a set advertising budget, and the consultancy should keep up-to-date with changes in technology where possible.

Translating SWOT Data into actions to push the business forward:

Translating the SWOT issues into actions, are best sorted into (or if necessary broken down into) six categories, because in the context of the way that business and organisations work, this makes them more quantifiable and measurable, responsible teams more accountable, and therefore the

activities more manageable. The six categories would be as follows;

1. Product (what are we selling?)
2. Process (how are we selling it?)
3. Customer (to whom are we selling it?)
4. Distribution (how does it reach them?)
5. Finance (what are the prices, costs and investments?)
6. Administration (and how do we manage all this?)

Depending on the situation a SWOT analysis can produce issues which very readily translate into (one of the six) category actions, or a SWOT analysis can produce issues which overlay a number of categories. The aim is now to work on translating;

• strengths (maintain, build and leverage),
• opportunities (prioritise and optimise),
• weaknesses (remedy or exit),
• threats (counter)

into actions (each within one of the six categories) that can be agreed and owned by a team or number of teams. I will leave you with one final example of how our start up IT Consultancy could develop and interpret the SWOT data into a plan of action.

I hope you have found this useful.

Happy Selling

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – Helping you successfully grow your business through powerful marketing techniques – Sales & Marketing Coach/Mentor

The importance of a good marketing plan

Marketing always plays a vital role in the success of any business. You need to build good, solid relationships with your customers, work out how you are going to reach and win new business and always be sure that they are happy and satisfied with the service in which you are giving them to ensure that they are always happy to recommend you to prospects, remember the best marketing is word of mouth. Furthermore you should continue to review and improve the things you do so that you will always stay ahead of your competition.

It is probably prudent to mention at this point that although marketing is essential to any successful business it will not guarantee sales unless it follows a well laid out plan. A well-researched and logical plan will serve you a better chance of building long term profitable relationships with your customers. A good marketing plan will serve as a reference for your marketing efforts from which you can plan and execute your marketing strategies. I like to use an example from my youth about the benefits of a good marketing plan. When I was a young boy I used to adore playing with Lego® and my wonderful mother must have spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds over the years on different models. I could barely contain my excitement when I was given a new one to build especially a big one. Can you imagine how difficult it would have been to build these sometimes complex models without the aid of a plan, a clear set of step by step instructions on how to build it. The same can be said for you marketing plan. By laying out plans, it sets out clear objectives and explains how you will achieve them. You can define your business well if you have a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve your marketing goals.

A well thought out marketing plan then paves the way for solid marketing strategy as any plan would be useless without a working strategy think back to the Lego® models a plan of the model would be useless without a step by step (strategy) process of how to put them together. So you need to be clear about your objectives and how you’re going to achieve them. You have to be realistic with your plans by setting measurable objectives, deadlines, defining responsibilities and considering your budget. For example one of your marketing objectives may be to increase your brands awareness by X%. You now have an objective from which you can create marketing goals like attend three networking events each week, five hundred new subscribers for your company newsletter, five hundred new Facebook fans, three thousand new Twitter followers, two hundred new connections on LinkedIn and one thousand, five hundred new contacts in your CRM whom you can market to monthly, all within six months. So, now you have your objective and a set of measurable goals, from these you can now work out your strategy of how you’re going to achieve them and most importantly the people you are going to target. Finally once you have your strategy and dependent on how organised you are; and I would strongly recommend doing this. You can now set out step by step instructions for example, on Monday’s between twelve thirty and one thirty engage with your connections on LinkedIn and make new relevant connections. A good marketing plan should assist you to integrate your total marketing effort and ensures a systematic approach to developing products and services to meet and satisfy your customer’s needs.

Planning means conducting an environmental audit – do a PEST analysis, SWOT analysis, Competitor analysis, and anything else you could think of to help you understand the environment in which the organization operates. Having done all this you should identify the key points and the most significant opportunities and threats facing the organization. You can use this information to develop a marketing strategy that focuses on the company’s strengths, addresses its weaknesses.

Thank you for reading and I’ll leave you with this; “strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory; tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”. Sun Tzu – The Art of War

Happy Selling

James Randle – Marketing Strategist – helping you successfully grow your business through powerful sales and marketing techniques – Sames and Marketing Coach/Mentor