Pass On Your Product Knowledge

When you hire someone to join the team, make sure you train them comprehensively in the products or services you are selling.

As customers, we expect staff to be able to answer our questions on a particular product or service – after all they are the ones trying to sell it to us.

But too often, we hear the words: “I’m sorry I don’t know.” Sometimes, that spells the end of the conversation, because if they can’t answer the question a potential customer will simply find someone else down the road who can. Sometimes, the staff member will offer to find out, which is commendable, but with appropriate training, the sales people should know the answer themselves.

To be successful in business you must have a team who has excellent product knowledge. There’s no point in you, the owner, holding all the knowledge because you cannot be everywhere at once. The business needs to be able to stand alone when you are not available – you may just be on the phone but you’re still not available – and that means all your staff, whether temporary, casual, part-time or full-time, need to be as knowledgeable as you are.

You need to think about: holidays (your own and those of your staff), sick days, long service leave, training days and succession, so that on any particular day the business can still present excellent product knowledge.

Think too about what is happening in your industry, what the key players are doing and be alert to industry trends and fashions. It is important to keep abreast with developments in the business environment and make sure you update staff regularly. The more informed they are, the more knowledge they have to help sell your products.

An important characteristic of a well-run business is that product knowledge is a shared resource amongst the staff, not jealously guarded by the owner or one key employee.

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Businesses Need Customer Referrals

Customers are what keep your business alive, but have you ever thought of them as an asset to grow your business?

Your customer base is one of the key assets you have. If these customers are happy, why not encourage them to tell others about you.

Various experts have claimed that around 90% of business for professional offices and 80% of business for retailers is from word of mouth referrals.

An amazing statistic, but it will only continue if you set up a system to handle referrals. You need to have a ‘new customer’ system to record details of the new customer and ensure the existing customer receives special treatment. This is important – you want them to continue referring people so why not give them an incentive.

When you get a referral, send the existing customer a letter thanking them for the referral and maybe a small gift, such as a voucher. Then give the ‘red carpet’ treatment to the person who has been referred. Don’t let the person who has been referred go back to the referrer and complain about the lack of service. Not only will you lose the person who was referred to you but you also run the risk of losing the original referrer.

Remember that you may have to encourage existing customers to refer people. They may think that you have enough business already. Tell them you are looking for referrals and offer special incentives.

When mailing out brochures or other promotional material, always send two or three copies and ask customers to hand on the extra copies to friends and associates.

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Be First, Be Different

Being first to the market with a sought-after new product or service can be a potential money-spinner.

If you’ve done your market research and business planning, pitched the product at the right price, planned the launch and have been particular about quality service, being first to the market will undoubtedly give you a competitive edge.

The challenge however of entering a competitive market is working out when the product or service is ready to launch. You may have to go in at a satisfactory quality level, rather than waiting to achieve the final couple of percentage points of quality.

If you procrastinate and a competitor beats you to it, you would have missed the opportunity to be the “pace setter” in the market by being first with the product

Know what your competitors are doing

Standing out above the others and being different is another way of creating your competitive edge.

To compete in a market, you need to know what your competitors are doing and offer a better deal.

But don’t compete on price alone. Instead, make customers believe your business offers better value for money in other ways, for example:
 After sales service
 More personalised service
 Value-added service
 Long guarantees
 Better than average quality.

A small service station, for example, might offer a free tyre check and windshield-cleaning service to customers, to compete with the bigger self-service, cut price petrol stations.

When you have your customers thinking your product or service is a better deal, even if it’s just the way they interpret it, then you have created a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for your product or service in the market.
But don’t be a rip-off merchant. Wild claims and false promises will soon earn you a name for dishonesty.
If you want to make profits in your business, try to make your business look different from that of your competitors.
Dare to be different!

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Sell Your News

What’s new? What’s different? What has changed? If your business has something to say, tell the media.

Getting a positive news story in the newspaper or on the radio is a major avenue of promoting your business. It hardly makes good business sense to ignore it.

But gone are the days when journalists had the time to seek out every piece of minor news and actively chase the people concerned. The advent of wire services and press secretaries has left most journalists office-bound, so unless the news of the day is placed before them it can be over-shadowed by other businesses who know how to use the media.

Plenty of newspapers, especially provincial or community papers are crying out for great news stories about local businesses. But you’ve got to get out there and tell them about it.

You won’t always have a great story to tell but it’s a good discipline to think about it regularly. Too often great news potential gets missed simply because nobody thought to tell anyone about it. And sometimes news turns up in unusual places. For example, taking on a new team member is unlikely to set the world on fire, but if there’s something about that person that makes for interesting reading, then why not “sell” it. They might, for instance, be a leading light in their field, or have come to New Zealand with special expertise etc.

Likewise, ongoing sponsorship of a particular event is not news, but if you just put in more money and saved it from the brink of collapse – that’s news.

Establishing a new export market for your product may not be big news if you live in Auckland, but if your business is in a small provincial town and you’re the first to market overseas, then that is something to make a fuss about.

Get into the habit of asking yourself:
 What’s about to happen?
 What has just happened?
Think about how the news might be interesting to other people.

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