Salesman 101

I had a small experience that happened approximately two months ago. I was actually being a door to door salesman. This was done in order to get rid of the unwanted items from my warehouse. This is due to the fact that online market has a totally different nature with offline market. Hence, not all items that sell very good in the conventional store could behave similarly in the online store. Being desperate by the condition, I decided to give it a go.

It was the first experience for me and it was very very very exciting, depressing, frustrating, and also full of fun. It was exciting and full of fun because I met a lot of people in that particular day. Of course I could understand the market condition better from the conversation with the people. However, it was depressing and frustrating since I was rejected for so many times in a very short period of time. Honestly, I have never experienced that many rejections in such short period of time in my life before.

At the end of the day, I forced myself to extract the essential lesson from that particular experience.

• Try to study the market first before you actually become a salesman. One of the biggest reasons why I did not sell was actually my products. As Mr. Pontoh said, a product should have a unique selling point and provide reasons for customers to buy.
  
• Just do it!! It was really hard for me to actually start the initial conversation in selling the products. I was worried that I would be thrown away from the stores. The fear of being rejected would always keep you under pressure and might lead to the result of not selling any of the products. But do not let this feeling overtake your guts.
  
• The last lesson is: Do not think about the rejection too much =). I think being rejected is totally normal. Instead of thinking about the rejection, control your energy to speak with the people that reject you and ask them why they do not want the product. Find out the best solution from your customer in order to make your sales rolling.

In conclusion, I give all my salute to all the salesmen out there. It is not an easy task to be done. Keep your head up!!!

Please share us your unique experience as or in facing a salesman in your life.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Strategic Location!? We live in cyber world era!

It just a few days ago when I wrote an article saying that business owners cannot rely solely on strategic location (See: Strategic Location & Customer Loyalty…). A few days have since passed and I have been getting a good feedback on it. It basically points out that now we can shop from home. Thank you to Mr. Internet. And no where can strategically beat shopping from you couch. Ouch!

This is a really good point and makes me thinking why should I be bothered on spending all those money for one particular spot in the CBD (Central Business District), which will cost me around three grand a week (rent)? Where, if you think about it, it is possible for me to open an online store with considerably lesser amount (per week).

I said on previous article: “if a business needs to relocate to un-strategic location, it will need to rely not only on customer loyalty and branding but also a new way to lure customers by understanding their dreams (expectation).” This is needed because customer will incur more “inconvenient” cost and in return we have to offer something more.

Now, instead of having all the troubles figuring out customer’s dreams, why don’t we go online? If I may borrow eBay terms: “List locally, sell globally.” And at the same time, our business is in everyone’s living rooms.

Right now, some of you may still wondering why businesses still queuing for a strategic physical locations, and more of you may be puzzled with the fact that those big retails companies are gripping hard on their network of stores.

Well, it all comes to people preferences. Some people like to touch, feel and try items before they buy it. Other group of people may like window shopping, but then end up buying things. And few people I know were actually saying that they rather go to the nearest shopping mall rather than paying $10 shipping and handling fees. They all have their own reasons.

Cyber market or physical market, each has its own target audiences. A statistic has found out that the main reason people shop online was because of the convenience offered. They don’t have to queue; they don’t have to find parking. In comparison with the above, we may have two different personalities here.

People will always be different one another. A few years back, when Wal-mart offer all in one shopping experience, it has not yet made street corner convenience store die. I think even with the existence of Amazon, people still sell books in-store. I believe that people have different needs, different way of doing things, or maybe different preferences. All these different will contribute on their shopping behaviors.

It is by understanding existing customers and potential target market; a business will be able to make the best decision for them. Whether, following IKEA (one centralize massive store), do it like Target (stores all over major shopping centers) or abandon the old world and join the new cyber world. Understanding customer’s expectation and offering them with the value they want will pose a significant benefit.

Author: Michael A Oei – MarketingFirst Group

Creating the Wonderful Values

As I stated in my previous column “Towards the Good Will Marketing” I went back to my lovely hometown, Jakarta eight weeks ago. I flew with Singapore Airlines (SQ) from Sydney to Jakarta, transiting in Singapore. When I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta, I immediately went to pick up my luggage. While I was waiting for my luggage, my name was suddenly called on the PA system by one of the airport staffs. Basically my luggage had not arrived with me together in Indonesia. The reason being was because the transit time in Singapore was only twenty minutes and the was not enough time to transfer the luggage from one plane to the next. Hence the luggage will arrive with the following Singapore-Jakarta flight.
At that particular moment I was disappointed and confused with what happened. I was not the only person who experienced this particular problem. To be honest, I did not trust with the Indonesians’ work ethic which always tries to complicate all the procedures especially in the occasions like this.

Conversely, I was treated very well at that night by the Singapore Airlines staffs. The procedure was simple. Basically the luggage will be delivered in two hours at the same night. I was promised that I will be contacted in the first hour just to ease my confusion. In one hour indeed, they made a call to inform me that the luggage had arrived safely and will be delivered via courier to my house as soon as possible. Approximately two hours later, the luggage arrived safely, being delivered by a courier who was very friendly to me. The following day, SQ phoned me to apologize for what had happened and to ensure that I had received the luggage safely without any hassle. Frankly, I was amazed by the values that their services had generated for me. The value of flying safely, the value of hassle-free compensation and the value of integrated professionalism as a company that were generated immediately impressed me.

In this particular column I would like to point out how important to create the outstanding values of your business in marketing. A true marketer once told me that being in business means creating value instead of merely providing product or service. Customers are never satisfied with values that they have. The true marketers will always be able to find new values to be their new opportunities. The true marketers also believe that great integrated values behind their product or service do not always mean cheaper price. In fact, Singapore Airlines tickets are considered to be more expensive compared to other flight carriers and yet they are always ranked as one of the best flight carriers in the world.

According to the Macquarie dictionary, a value could be thought of as the property of a thing that makes it highly regarded, desirable, useful, worth, merit. The marketing actually happens after the sales have been finalized. Therefore creating wonderful after sales value is particularly crucial in business. Again I would like to point out some real life examples to draw the thick correlation between the marketing principles to the daily routines.

Let us think about Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Vertu and the other high-end brands which cost us hundreds and thousands of dollars just to buy their items. We know that it is not the end of our life not to purchase these items. Besides, everybody knows that it takes only less than half of the retail price to produce these items. Why then do we always have the desire to buy these items? One of the most obvious reasons is that they provide prestige - the impression and sense of being successful. It cannot be denied in the modern society that having these items make us feel good about ourselves and make others admire us (self-importance value).

Everybody knows MasterCard, with their slogan “There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else, there’s MasterCard”. This slogan really simplifies the value that MasterCard offers to their customers which is convenience. MasterCard is accepted around the globe. Even different currency does not create a boundary for them. Everything that could be bought by money can be handled by MasterCard.

For Him Magazine (FHM) and Male Emporium (ME) magazines are the other example. We know that these magazines contain nothing but funky and crazy articles that do not educate in a sense. However, FHM in fact is a global magazine which exists in 31 different countries. This is due to the fact that these magazines create an outstanding value that provides their customers an escape from boredom and a way to reduce stress.

These examples outline the importance of value creation bundled into their product and service. These examples do not follow the old and conservative marketing definition that to win the market, the product or service has to be cheaper. By creating new wonderful values, the company will become closer to their customers. Hence, they would be closer to the market. As I stated in my previous column “Global Strength, Local Approach” the market is actually more important than the marketing itself. Therefore, our marketing tactic should be able to follow and to be implemented into the dynamic and modern market.

I understand that this column is still far from perfection. Hence, any comments, questions and opinions would be greatly appreciated


David Herlambang


MarketingFirst