Category: Sales

You have the option of
running
a Buy One, Get One Free (BOGO) promotion
or a 50% discount.

Both are
the same value to the consumer
and cost to the business
but which strategy will drive the most sales?

It depends upon the product.

A study in the Journal of Marketing,
When More Is Less:
The Impact of Base Value Neglect
on Consumer Preferences
for Bonus Packs over Price Discounts,
finds
“that the preference
for bonus packs
over price discounts
holds for inexpensive products
and familiar brands
but diminishes
or can even be reversed
for expensive products
or unfamiliar brands.”

In other words,
while the Buy One, Get One Free offer
works better with cans of Coca-Cola,
the 50% discount
works better with cans of cola produced
by a startup beverage company.

If your product is new
and unproven,
the steep discount should produce more sales.

Every day,
I receive a few emails
saying basically this

“Hi K,
I’m just following up with you
about my earlier email.”

And the person signs their name.

WTF?

This tells me a couple of things.

a) the email is spamtastic.
The person has a long list of people
they’re hounding
which is why they didn’t keep
the original email

Or

b) the person is butt lazy.
He/she couldn’t be bothered
to forward the original email.
He/she expects me
to spend my precious time
doing that.

And

c) clearly that person needs me
more than I need them.
‘Cause if I needed them,
I would have responded.

If you care about a response,
care about the follow up.
Make it easier for the person
to respond
by including the original message.

In the room I write (i.e. work) in,
I have one phone.
It is a corded phone
positioned far from my desktop computer.

When I take phone meetings,
I print my notes before the meeting
and bring them to that phone.
I’m completely unplugged,
completely engaged,
completely present,
and the people in the meeting notice.

Why?

Because being present is now rare.
It is a heady feeling
to sit down with anyone,
especially a busy important person,
and have 100% of her attention,
have her not look at her phone once,
have her focus on us.

Being present,
being unplugged,
is an easy, no-brainer way
to make someone feel they’re special.

Use it with clients, with bosses,
with loved ones.

Erika Napoletano talks about
the new rules of social business.

There’s a saying in the investing world.
“The first million is the hardest.”

This is true of customers, of sales, also.
Those first customers are the toughest
to convince to buy.

Why?

Because once we have a base
of happy customers,
these customers help us promote,
convincing other customers to buy.

THIS is why many start ups
partner with larger, more established companies,
to leverage their customer base.

When I partner with publishers,
the publisher’s readership base
is a huge factor.
One of my publishers has a reader loop
with 1,000 readers.
Another publisher has a reader loop
with 4,000 readers.
When I promote on the second reader loop,
I sell 4 x’s as many books
as when I promote on the first reader loop.

Yep, the first million is the hardest.
Considering making this easier to achieve
through partnerships.

When Facebook snagged the internet’s imagination,
I was told over and over again
that blogging was dead.
It was all about Facebook
and then Twitter
and now Pinterest.

Ironically,
the marketing giants
such as Seth Godin and Duct Tape Marketing
continued to blog.

Blogging has evolved though
and so has ways to monetize your blog.
It is no longer
all about the flashing banner ads.

Elaine Pofeldt shares
4 Easy Ways to Monetize Your Blog.

The best piece of advice is
“If you’re looking for some new ideas
on how to generate revenue
from your blog or website,
there’s no better place to turn
than to others
who are running blogs, too.”

If your revenue stream is strong,
you may not wish to mess with it.
If it isn’t,
consider other ways to monetize your blog.

I wandered from store to store
on Saturday,
talking to employees.

I asked them what incentives
they gave to customers
to bring them back into the store.
I asked them what more profitable products
they suggested to customers.

The answers were worrying.

Employees were so busy
simply processing
the overwhelming number of bargain hunters
they didn’t have an opportunity
to do anything else.

The goal of a door crasher or loss leader
is not to sell a zillion products
at a loss.

The goal of a door crasher
is to bring customers into the store
where employees can then sell them
profitable products.

Evaluate your Black Friday strategy.
Was it profitable?

I don’t need to look at sales
to know how well a story is doing.
Immediate feedback from readers
signals whether or not a story will sell.

If I have to use lines and lines of copy
to sell a story,
it isn’t going to sell well.
A story that sells well
sells with one line.
I see/feel the immediate excitement.

Clearly it makes sense to pitch the one-liner
to a limited trusted group
BEFORE I write the story
(launch the product).

As Travis Steffen shares

“Walk people in your target market
through your vision.
Take their feedback into account
and look for patterns.
Your concept may make
a ton of sense in your mind,
but it may not make sense to customers.
If they don’t “get it”
or see value in it,
chances are they won’t give you money
—which is what you’re typically after.”

Pitch your one liner
and watch the reaction.

A couple of weeks ago,
I watched Wreck-It Ralph,
an animated movie with video game characters.
In the movie,
Wreck-It Ralph is a villain.
He plays an important role
in the world
but he is never acknowledged for it.
So he leaves his video game
and the other characters realize
that the game can’t exist without him.

We all want to know we matter,
even video game characters.

As Tom Peters shares

“It is to say, simply,
that in any context,
personal or professional,
there is no greater gift
to the person or persons
with whom you are engaged
than heartfelt (as well as headfelt)
acknowledgement of their contributions
and fundamental human worth;
moreover, said acknowledgement
almost invariably leads to
greater commitment
and better-served clientele
and a happier bottom line.”

Tell the people who matter
(i.e. everyone)
that they matter.

Difficult customers.
We all have them.
I have readers who are never happy.

How to deal with them?
With speed.

Michael Samson shares

“Customers like knowing
that someone is paying attention
and the faster the response,
the stronger that message will be.

Difficult customers can be
especially impatient
and immediate responses go a long way
to reduce their angst.”

We don’t need to solve the problem immediately
but we should respond quickly,
sharing that their concerns are heard
and we’re working on the situation.

No response makes upset customers
even more upset.

Deal with difficult customers quickly.

‘No’ is one of the most emotion-laden words
we can use.
It is infused with negativity,
with rejection,
both past and present.

So many saleswomen avoid using this word.

As JJ Ramberg shares

“Never say no to a potential customer.
I learned this from Kimberly and Katherine Corps
from Pilates on Fifth.

I was sitting in their reception area one day
and a woman came in
and asked the receptionist,
“Do you have yoga here?”
And the receptionist answered,
“We have pilates and cardiolates,
have you tried one of those?”

What a smart response.
Most people would have replied
“No,we don’t have yoga,”
and the woman would have walked out the door.

Instead, by finding a way around saying no,
the receptionist got this woman interested in cardiolates
and she ended up signing up for a class!”

Avoid saying ‘no’ to a prospective customer.