Marketing & Selling your Product…

Every organisation structure have six different functions, may be some more but these are kind of in pretty much any organisation. And they are Marketing, Sales, HR, Operations, Finance, and Fulfilment. In this article, I am going to focus on Marketing and Selling.

What is Marketing?

Marketing can create a brand image of your product, change that image if the image needs or it’s not perceived the right way. And get people interested in what’s for sale. According to Evan Carmichael, there are three purposes of marketing:

• Capture attention of your target market.
• Facilitate the prospect’s decision-making process.
• Give customers a specific low-risk, easy-to-take action facilitating their ability to make a good decision.

SWOT Analysis:

You can include a SWOT analysis by completing the matrix to assess your business in the current environment in terms of strengths and weaknesses (internal) and opportunities and threats (external). This is a good exercise to go through on an annual basis. After completing your analysis, provide your thoughts on: how your strengths can help you to maximize opportunities and minimize threats; how your weaknesses can slow your ability to capitalize on the opportunities; and how could your weaknesses expose you to threats?

4 P’s of Marketing:

• Price : Value to the customer
• Product : Define the product
• Promotions : Where, where and what are you promoting?
• Place : Where to find it? Distribution Channels

What is Sales?

“The purpose of sales is to turn an interest in a product into a commitment to purchase it.”

The Sales Pipeline

It’s important to understand what a sales pipeline really is.

• full of people who might be interested in buying your products or services. You might call these people your prospects.
• Fill the Sales pipelines continuously.

Sales Cycle:

It’s critical that you understand what the sales cycle is and where your prospects are in that cycle :

• Initial contact: when the prospect first finds my offering, or when I first communicate with them.
• Educational phase of the prospect
• Interest to the purchase
• Sign the contract
• Payment

Offering a Vitamin or a Pill?

Another exciting idea that was the concept of the vitamin versus the pill. This is all about time, timing, and sense of urgency.

For example, if you’re sick what do you want? You want a pill. You want a pill to make the pain go away or to make the bad stuff in your body go away, however a vitamin doesn’t necessarily do that. Vitamins are typically for something that’s more preventative. Pill solves the problem now, vitamins solve the problem later.

Think about that. Because the results of a pill are more time sensitive than the results of a vitamin, the pill has a different value. It’s okay to sell either a vitamin or a pill, but it’s important for you to understand what value or benefit you’re giving to your customers. Understanding the difference between the vitamin and the pill will help you understand how you should approach your customers and position your message.

Listen for Needs and Concerns

Listening is such an important part of being a salesperson. When you listen, hopefully you’ll learn about things that’ll help you not assume, but really understand what your customer’s needs, wants, and concerns are.

• Ask questions that go deeper into the prospect’s answers to really understand what they need.
• Ask open ended questions. For example, instead of saying, “Do you want to buy this? “ or “Are you interested in this? “ which is a yes or no question, you would say, “What are the things that you’re looking for “in a product like this?”It’s important that you ask open ended questions and then you let them answer the questions.

The idea is that you’re not doing most of the speaking. It’s a poor salesman who talks themselves out of a sale.

Follow-up

Follow-up is something that you should get really good at if you want to make sales. It’s your responsibility. I’ve found that sometimes people are just waiting for us to have that follow-up conversation. They’re already ready to buy, they’ve made the decision. They’re just waiting for you to reach out to them again.

Ask for Sale

It’s your responsibility to evaluate where the relationship with prospect is at and when is the right time to ask for the sale.

Ask for Referrals

You should also ask your prospects for referrals. If you feel like you have delighted them and you have a good relationship, and they like what you have to offer, ask them for referrals.