Be Different or be dead

April 17, 2023

Why offering special deals only to new customers is a bad marketing tactic

Why offering special deals only to new customers is a bad marketing tactic.

I am absolutely against offering special deals and promotions to attract new customers while not making them available to existing customers.

Yet many, if not most, organizations do it.

▪️“Come to us and we’ll give you a free iPad.”
▪️“Come join our team and we’ll give you 2 months service FREE!”
(small print: this offer is available for new customers only…)

These are the main reasons I have no time for this kind of marketing tactic.

#1. The economics of this type of marketing program are flawed to say the least.

Advocates say that each new customer acquired by “giving goodies” and additional benefits away to them generates new revenue for the company, and hence value to the bottom line.

NFW!

First, ‘New Deal Customers’ are fickle (because generally they left someone else to come to you) so expected revenues from them will likely fall short of expectations because they will leave you when they sniff out a better deal.

Second, the costs of acquiring these new customers are HUGE, and will likely never be recovered due to the short life cycle of New Deal Customers. They leave or spend far less than the marketing business case assumed.

So you may get a short term upward blip in revenues but margins—due to acquisition costs—suffer.

#2. It disregards the existing loyal customer. Focusing on New Deal Customers refuses to benefit those who have supported the organization and got it to where it’s at.
It’s insulting.

I find it interesting that organizations are starving to be inclusive, to support local communities and be advocates for the environment, for example, yet can turn their backs on their ‘loyalists’.
Hypocritical? I think so.

#3. There are conflicting internal cultural issues created when this approach is used.

On the one hand, most organizations espouse the importance of the customer, and to serve them in a way that engenders their sustainable loyalty. Many talk about creating memorable experiences for their customers as the vehicle to get there.

And yet in practice they push them aside to binge on attracting New Deal Customers.

No wonder employees are confused about what’s important. Leaders say one thing and do another.

#4. It’s a misallocation of investment. Costs of acquisition are HUGE in comparison to the costs of keeping a loyal customer which argues that investments should be targeted to the existing customer base FIRST.

#5. It’s an illusion to think that the new customer will be loyal. These are false benefits. Short term at best.

If the New Deal Customer came to you for the Deal, what makes you think they won’t leave YOU for a better deal elsewhere?

#6. It amounts to competing on price in a different form. Giving value away for free essentially drives down the price of the product or service being purchased.

#7. A focus on New Deal Customers damages your brand.
It signals to new customers that you want to appeal to them based on price, not building relationships.

It shows you’re willing to get new customers AT ANY COST.

It shows you’re an uncaring organization with no consideration for the customers who helped build your success.

If you must use freebies as bait to lure new customers to you, at least do the right thing by offering the deal to your existing customers FIRST.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

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• Posted 4.17.23 at 05:06 am by Roy Osing
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March 27, 2023

8 effective tactics sales managers should use to NOT manage

8 effective tactics sales managers should use to NOT manage.

Increasing the effectiveness of sales management misses the point.

I’ve always maintained that a truly great person responsible for a team of sales professionals doesn’t ‘manage’ at all.

Traditional sales managers spend their time enacting what the sales discipline prescribes.

Their intent is to move the sales team up the learning curve on sales fundamentals to make sales individuals better; to improve their performance:

✔️ how to make a cold call.
✔️ how to spot a good lead.
✔️ how to manage their sales funnel more productively.
✔️ how to author a good sales proposal.
✔️ how to uncover customer needs.
✔️ how to overcome client objections.

Performing these practices may make the sales team more proficient at selling at least in terms of ‘textbook sales’ as practised by the sales herd, but conforming to these sales standards does nothing to make sales more effective in adding strategic value to an organization.

Furthermore, following best practices does nothing to help the organization standout in a crowd of competitors by offering long term relevant, compelling and unique value to their customers.

Sales management shouldn’t aspire to make salespeople get better; they should be held accountable for equipping them to transform the organization into a force that cannot be reckoned with in the market.

Sales management should be focused not on improvement but on transformation.

These 8 tactics will help sales managers assume their dutiful role as leaders of sales transformation.

#1. Define the strategic sales role.

Sales managers must take a different view of their role.

To NOT be merely a sales function, but to play a vital role in executing the strategic game plan of their organization and translating it into what it means specifically for sales.

As a sales manager, if you don’t understand the strategic direction of the organization intimately and be able to declare what it means to sales, you will never be able to define the strategic value sales must deliver.

#2. Focus on the longer term

Strategic value is not created by monthly myopia.

Raise your head and look beyond the immediate sales cycle. Balance the need for short term sales and creating long term customer loyalty.

Sales value is not synonymous with flogging products to clients in the moment; rather it is creating the environment where clients choose to transact with you forever.

#3. Pay for client relationship building.

The sales compensation plan needs a major overhaul in order to encourage sales behaviors that add strategic value.
A critical move in this regard is to reduce the emphasis on pushing products and add the client relationship building component.

In my role as president of an internet startup, I set the sales bonus plan at 40% for achieving product sales targets and 60% for establishing meaningful client relationships.

As the measurement tool for relationship building, I introduced what I called the Client Report Card where the client rated their salesperson on how effective they were at performing this task.

#4. Build teamwork with marketing.

Marketing is close to the strategy of the organization so it makes sense for sales to be closely aligned with the marketing team.

The benefits of a tight sales - marketing relationship are largely twofold:
▪️sales are afforded a unique insight into what strategic value they can add to the marketing effort.
▪️by building strong currency with marketing, sales is seen as a team that the marketers should support in terms of product training, advertising and promotion cover and sales tools.

#5. Enhance strategic skills.

An effective way for sales to add strategic value is to be competent at strategic thinking and to apply the skill to helping clients build their own strategic game plan.

This solidifies the salesperson as a strategic partner of the client with privileges to acquire business accordingly.

The ultimate proof of a salesperson providing strategic value to their client is having the salesperson invited to be part of the client’s strategic planning team.

#6. Recover from service blunders.

Making mistakes is (unfortunately) common in organizations, but if the right response is taken the OOPS! can be transformed into a WOW! by the salesperson with the result that client loyalty is actually enhanced.

In fact, service recovery is so effective, the client forgets that they were screwed over in the first place!

I hosted sales events that recognized sales recovery champions, it was that important to sales’ strategic value. After all what can be more important strategically than building client loyalty?

#7. Create lateral moves for high potential sales people.

Strategic value offered by any employee is in large measure a function of their breadth of experience in the organization. The more positions they have held the more value they can offer through a lens of what matters to other departments.
Even though no sales leader wants to part with their most valued employees, it’s necessary with long term value creation.

#8. Lose—YES LOSE!—a sale

For sales, adding strategic value boils down to doing what’s right for the client. PERIOD. Pushing the organization’s agenda by caring only about your quota and how many products are sold is counter productive to long term growth and survival.

It’s a bit perverse, but sales value increases when a sale is lost because it was the right thing to do for the client. The qualifier, of course, is that the salesperson fins a way to broker the sale even though it might require another supplier’s solution.

The principle at play is: lose the sale but NEVER lose the client!

Sales managers who are obsessed with efficiency aren’t doing their organization any favours; those who look at the job with a value bias are worth their weight in gold.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 3.27.23 at 07:10 am by Roy Osing
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March 20, 2023

What’s the audacious (but simple) formula to take a startup to a BILLION in sales?

Is there a formula to take a startup to a BILLION in sales?

Yup. But it’s not just about sales. This is not a treatise on sales techniques; FAR FROM IT! In fact sales plays a minor role in what it takes to get a BILLION.

In my seventh book, “Audacious ’Unheard-of Ways’ I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES”, (https://www.bedifferentorbedead.com/blog/item/1328) I share with you the formula I discovered over my four-decade career as an entrepreneur, CMO and president.

I hope you check out my book for the details, but here are 8 snippets I hope will tweak your interest:

1. Business plan — You won’t make a dent in the BILLION if you spend all your time trying to perfect your plan to get your strategic intent ‘perfect’. I will show you how to develop my BILLION business plan that gets your end game ‘just about right’ and focuses on execution as the source to learn and tweak it on the run.

2. Tailor-made solutions — BILLION dollars in sales doesn’t come from a mass market solution marketing machine, rather a healthy mix of mass customized and individual tailor-made solutions with ME-NOW as the primary focus.
I will give you a step-by-step method of doing it based on what worked for me as CMO.

3. Premium pricing — Pricing on the journey to a BILLION is about being a premium price business where the value provided to its customers commands higher prices than the competition. Discount pricing is for commodity players with mediocre sales and margins.
I will share my pricing secrets with you and show you how to play the high-price, high-sales game.

4. Elegant delivery — A key component of the BILLION sales stream is how solutions are delivered to customers. Delivery systems must be flawless.
This is basic stuff. Customers expect to get what they’ve bought in a straightforward way and when delivery systems don’t work their dissatisfaction is often expressed by complaining to their friends or moving to another supplier.
I will show you in simple terms how to flawlessly execute your plan and ensure your customers get what they want when they want it.

5. Caring service — A business that is capable of a BILLION in sales cares about its customers.
They actually have a culture that has moved beyond the normal strategy of providing excellent customer service to one where employees treat their colleagues and customers with the respect and empathy they deserve.
I will explain in detail how I created a service strategy for the organizations I led and the success that I had.

6. Serving leadership — A BILLION in sales comes from frontline functions supported by serving leaders.
They understand that superlative performance and unmatched results come from well trained employees working with the right tools and ‘100 % uptime’ systems and processes and minimal barriers and roadblocks to doing their jobs the way they need to be done.
Leadership plays a vital role in the effectiveness of delivering results by spending time with the frontline and other key delivery systems personnel asking the simple question: “How can I help?” and serving them in any way they can.
My success as a leader came from a blueprint I developed for myself and I’m going to take you through it so you can reap the same rewards as I did.

7. A win-your-business-everyday attitude — A BILLION in sales requires an attitude and culture that takes nothing for granted in terms of customer loyalty. These businesses know that, with so much competition and alternatives for their customers, they must earn the right to serve their customers everyday.
And that if they do much as lose focus on that purpose, they could lose business in a heartbeat.
Employees are coached to assume that their customer’s business is always up in the air and that they must fight for it with every customer engagement.
My approach to building strong teams is unique, and in my book you will learn to not only have a strong turned-on team, but also to do it in an unheard-of way.

8. Reaction DNA — You don’t earn a BILLION by having a strategy that successfully plays out the way it was originally intended; there are always unexpected ‘body blows’ that strike, which requires a business to react ‘in the moment’ to take it in a new direction.
These businesses have reaction as a basic element of their DNA. They absorb body blows effectively, re-vector their strategy and retain their sales momentum.
There’s a formula to create the organizational ability to respond to unforeseen events that shock you, and I will unveil it for you in specific detail.

These snippets only scratch the surface in terms of what I did to successfully take a startup business to a BILLION in sales.

For the full reveal, check out my new book,

Cheers,
Roy
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Order ‘Audacious’ here:
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• Posted 3.20.23 at 07:27 am by Roy Osing
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February 27, 2023

7 simple things that define an audacious sales team

Source: Unsplash

7 simple things that define an audacious sales team.

What defines a great sales team and the salespeople in it?

The number of products sold and revenue generated?

No.

Products and revenue are the result of the sales effort; the more effective the sales effort the higher the economic return to the organization and the higher bonus for the salesperson.

Here are the 7 things that define audacious sales:

✔️ Taking a long term view of what the customer needs, not exploiting the moment and driving to make an immediate sale;

✔️ Creating an enjoyable experience for the customer, not using the engagement process as a platform to feed the salesperson’s ego;

✔️ Enhancing the relationship with the customer not not pushing products at them because of the sales quota in place;

✔️ Asking questions as the engagement priority as opposed to telling the customer what they need;

✔️ Respecting silence in the conversation rather than filling the air with the sales pitch;

✔️ Honouring integrity and honesty rather than bending the truth and doing whatever it takes to make the sale;

✔️ Achieving the outcome that is best for the customer which may not completely fulfil the personal agenda of the salesperson.

How do you know if a salesperson puts in an effective effort?

Ask their customers.

Here’s what they say about the standout ones:

— “I refuse to buy from anyone else.”

— “He is the only one I trust.”

— “I often go out of my way to create the sales opportunity for her.”

— “I feel guilty talking to anyone else about what I need.”

— “I don’t feel confident dealing with anyone else.”

— “I am ok to wait until they are available.”

— “I am quite willing to be inconvenienced in order to buy from them.”

— “I am thankful to have him looking out for my long term interests.”

— “I think of her as a close friend.”

— “I honestly believe he cares about me and what my problems are.”

— “They’re in it for the long term with me.”

— “She is always there to talk to me when I need to.”

— “They never push products at me.”

— “She is the best listener I have ever known.”

How many salespeople can claim their customers make even one or two of these statements?

In my experience, very few.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 2.27.23 at 06:12 am by Roy Osing
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