Authenticity and transparency

Consumers tend to have an increased interest in authenticity with an increased need for transparency. With the increased range of products, it is hard for the consumers to decide what is authentic. Marketing is not working as it used to. Therefore we need to change our focus on marketing from “what consumer needs” to “what consumer wants”. Distinctive brands need something more – sensory marketing. Advertizing campaigns has become less important. Instead, quality-to-price ratio has increased in importance. There is a shift from lowest price competition to quality-to-price ratio. Also the story of tradition and origin is important. Advertize with your heart, not your brain.

Become a star negotiator

The most common mistake in negotiations is to be unprepared and initiate with the lowest (if selling)/highest (if buying) acceptable outcome. I once had the opportunity to listen to a seminar by Karin Klerfelt and here are her tips for us to become star negotiators.
1. Initiative; If coming from your opponent, buy yourself time by asking if you can get back later, for example at 2 pm. If coming from you, be prepared.
2. Preparations; Set goals at 3 different levels - best, okay and worst outcome. This gives you space for negotiation.
3. Greeting; Build a good atmosphere by sending a “I want us to reach an agreement” message to your opponent. All your expressions (spoken language, vocal, body language, etc) need to send this message.
4. Introduction; What are the rules – how long will the negotiation take part? Take acceptance!
5. Demands; Ask the opponent. Practice your lines/questions before the meeting. What is the goal, budget, is there any other person that has the final mandate, etc?
6. Agreement; List of demands from opponent needs to be prepared. See to that you reach win-win for both partners. Give and take! This is a human mechanism called “reciprocal action”. Money is not everything, instead of giving a discount you may add a supplementary product. Be flexible!
7. Finnish; Settle the agreement. First make sure to have real eye contact and then summarize what you have agreed upon. To summarize is what drives the meeting forward.
8. Follow up; Important to follow up with the opponent in between negotiation events. This is when you build your relationship before next event.

0.5 – 5.0 method

I once had a sales coach that taught me a method to base customers visit or sales calls on. He called it the 0.5 – 5.0 method and it works so that you follow a scheme to eventually get an acceptance, for example on an order. Subsequently you continue with conducting a needs assessment or a presentation of the company and the products.

0.5 Waking the interest – Have you ever had this problem with…?
1.0 Aim and objective – Then I have this solution for you.
2.0 General problem picture in third person – I’m often in contact with customers who have a demand for…
3.0 Our solution, the product – For these type of customers we have this solution…
4.0 References – Our customers are…and for them it is important that…
5.0 Acceptance question – Is this important for you, too?

The method is off cause not applicable to all customer situations. Sometimes for example, only 2.0 – 5.0 are applicable to the situation. As my sales coach pointed out “our customer shall enjoy doing business with us, not only meet with us”.

Don’t take no for an answer

-Can I help you?
In 99 of 100 possible cases the answer you get from asking this question will be “no, thanks”. This is not the answer you like to get when exhibiting at that congress you spent a lot of time and money to be present at. Instead, try starting with a question to which the answer is not yes or no. Try starting with questions like “where are you from”, “what type of business are you in”, what is you research interest”, “what do you think about this interesting product”, or similar questions that demands more of an answer than simply a yes or a no.
I was in a clothing store once just browsing around. Instead of giving me the “can I help you” question the clerk turned to me with a pair of trousers in her hands.
-What do you think about these? she asked me. Just got them in this morning.
She instantly gained my interest and now she had the opportunity to show me something additional.
At a different occasion I was trying on a shirt at a department store when a shop assistant came up to me.
-You do look good in that color, she said. That shirt suits you very well.
I ended up buying the shirt.
My colleague told me about when he was admiring a coat in a clothing store once. The salesman approached him.
-Do you think you’re worth it? he asked.
That question has only one answer and that answer is yes. My colleague went straight out of the store to withdraw money from the cash machine whereupon he went straight back in to get the coat.

Sensory marketing

Today's major information flow and constant lack of time requires new ways of communicating. Functional benefits are no longer enough. It has become increasingly important to communicate the brand through the company's values, material selections (not only in products but also in packaging and brochures), product design and the design of the graphic profile (visual identity). I read Bertil Hultén’s book Sensory Marketing (ISBN: 9789147087105) with great interest. Fascinated, I read about companies working to create the brand's soul with the help of signature scents, signature sound, design and figurative marks, taste strategies and choice of materials. For example, to add weight to technology products signals quality. Some companies work with the same face or the same jingle voice year after year and I dare say that most of us know the signature sound of the ice-cream truck. Shops and hotels are working with signature fragrances, furnishings and lighting to create a company identity.
How can you apply this to a company whose products mainly are exported? Start by clarifying what the company stands for and what values there are in the company. Based on this, think about how to convey this through the company web site, marketing material, product packaging, etc. Review the company logo, paper quality in printed material, packaging design, colors and graphic images in the marketing material, design of the website, etc.
To signal quality, trust and responsibility you can for example select an FSC certified paper and environmentally friendly print production. Select signature colors and work only with a few in your marketing communication, preferably the same as in the company logo, review the choice of images, fonts and layouts and ensure that it strictly abides the selected graphic profile. By this you create a company identity through the selected colors, design, form and images (visual) and a feeling of quality through the selection of paper quality and design of printed material (feel). Visual and audio impressions can for example be conveyed through a video on the company website and that presents the company or its products. As an added value, you can offer something that is specific to the country or place where the business is located, to your customers to eat or drink at visits or congresses (taste and smell). Company values are communicated through all the things you do and all the choices you make.

Dare focusing

How many times a week, if not daily, do you not get calls from sales persons who convincingly tell you how many their magazine actually reaches out to and what effect an ad in that same journal would have on your sales. I once got a call from one of Sweden's leading tabloid newspapers. The salesman informed me correctly that many of our existing and potential customers on the Swedish market actually read this paper. With that being said, he wanted me to know what true potential an ad in this tabloid would have for us on finding new buyers of our products on the Swedish market.
As a marketing manager at a company that provides tools for scientists within a niched field of research, my question back to him was if he really believed that our customers would be receptive to the message in an ad from us in the tabloids? My experience is that it would have been wasted money. For a message to come through, it is important to find the right medium in which the recipient is most likely to be receptive to the information. A scientific journal is a more appropriate forum in our case. For us, where the recipient most likely do not even read the printed edition, but instead scans the electronic version of the same for what is published in his or her own field of research, an ad in the printed edition would probably pass unnoticed.
The same way you evaluate where to spend your money best, you should evaluate how to spend your time most effectively. The reasons for a potential customers to choose a different technology than the one you have to offer is important information for you not to waste time on so-called cold leads. It is equally important to be aware of how the products fit the user needs and why customers choose to work with your products, as it is to know why in other customer situations the products fit less. Resources are always a limitation. Hence it is important to decide how to spend them, in terms of time and money, to get the biggest bang for the buck.

The distribution network

For small and medium-sized enterprises with less possibilities of establishing own sales offices worldwide, it is instead important to build up a good distribution network of dealers and agents. Ideally would be to find distributors who are dedicated to the supplier's own products and can devote all resources to the sales of these. That is not always the case. So how do you choose the right partners?
There are a lot of different distributors out there. There are large ones with a broad product range, small dedicated to a specific product category, major catalog companies with minimal customer contact and smaller companies with more focus on being out at customer sites.
The large, reaching broad has not always proven to be the best. Neither has the small niched ones shown to be the most appropriate. The ones that usually succeed as distributors are the ones that have a clear profile towards the customer, who do not have a too wide range of products, which have the right customer profile in their CRM systems, who have similar products as the supplier and hence can offer them in packages, so called product bundling.
After having worked myself some years for a distributor on the Swedish market, I cannot stress enough the importance of the supplier keeping good contact with the distributor. Of great significance for the inspiration is also the opportunity to receive training from the supplier. When the dealers have a good relationship with you as the supplier, have knowledge of your products and their market positioning, are familiar with the product's unique selling points versus the competition, have good knowledge of the product's customer profile, and feel comfortable with the sales of your products, only then you have a good chance of succeeding with your distribution network.