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January/February 2005
Greetings
In this issue of Geewiz News you'll find:
- Tsunami Thank You
- Christmas Relaxation Lessons
- Marketing Evaluation Idea
- Sales Planning Tip
- Interesting Book
- Sales & Marketing Institute of NZ
- Quick Checklist of 2005
- Start up Questions to ask yourself
about your business
- New Additions to the Geewiz Website
- Seminars for February, March & April
- Welcome to New Geewiz Friends
- The Outlook for 2005
Tsunami Thank You
A great big thank you to all those readers of Geewiz News
that will have contributed help to the terrible tsunami
disaster, and spare a thought for the Malaysian and Thailand
business readers of Geewiz News - all of us hope for your
speedy recovery.
Isn't it interesting, when such a disaster occurs, how
people working together with people can actually make a
significant difference?. It really is a lesson for 2005 that
people do business with people - people achieve change
through working with people, so let's not have systems and
processes that take away the people contact.
Christmas Relaxation Lessons
So now we've had either short or long breaks, and we're all
feeling refreshed, recharged, and maybe those batteries are
ready to run again, how about sparing a thought for your
planning for 2005, and when are you going to plan for some
regular breaks to make sure that you can perform in top
condition all year, and not yet like I did at the end of
2004 - utterly exhausted!
Here are some ideas for making sure that you plan some
recharge time:
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Plan to take, and book out, one week per quarter for
holiday time. Choose the week and mark it in your diary
now.
- Perhaps instead of a week, decide to take a long
weekend every month - be it a Friday weekend or a Monday
weekend and book out in your diary to take one long
weekend, and then make sure that that long weekend is
going to be used for relaxation.
- Look at your peaks of business and make sure that
just prior to the peak trading season or selling season
or marketing demands, that you take some time out for
yourself and also any staff that are working with you to
make sure you are in top condition.
- If you are the owner of the business, when have you
scheduled your staff holiday breaks to make sure that
they are all having holiday breaks and then most of all,
where have you scheduled your breaks?
- It's easy to plan one week breaks isn't it, but
remember that one week is generally not long enough to
actually recharge. A two week break is far better every
six months than one week stolen every now and again.
- How about scheduling your breaks with the school
holidays if you've got school aged children?
If you're in New Zealand or Australia you might as well
enjoy February and March because that's when the hot
weather of summer is going to occur, as we've all had
such an awful wet Christmas, the wettest period in ten
years. However, let's look on the opportunity side, that
means that our customers are going to be in a great mood
for February and March because the sun will be shining,
the staff will be enjoying work, and you will get lots
of things done.
Marketing Evaluation Idea
Most of you who are experienced in marketing will have heard
of the product life cycle with its four stages of
Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. I wonder how
many of you have thought of using this concept to position
your products and services according to where they are in
the market place.
Take each of your main products and position them on a graph
into the categories as to whether they are Introduction,
Growth, Maturity or Decline, and then having completed all
of your products and services have a look at your total
company performance across the products that you sell. Have
you got too many products heading towards the top end of
Maturity and moving into Decline? Have you got too many
products in the Introduction so that you are spending scarce
resources trying to introduce new products instead of moving
products through the Growth phase to maximise your sales and
profit opportunities, and also the Maturity phase where you
are getting as much revenue as possible out of the target
market segment?
Then make your decisions based of which products you are
going to get rid of, or services your going to stop
offering, because they are in the decline stage, and how
many products you can afford to have in the Introduction and
Growth stages given your company's resources, and plan
yourself ahead for 2005.
Every time I do this with a marketing client it opens up
incredible possibilities for fine tuning and restructuring
of products or the brands or the services - I invite you to
give it a go.
Sales Planning Tip
This is a practical, visual, enlightening project which I
recently had a distribution client undertake. That is, I got
them to get two wall maps and a whole pile of coloured pins,
and position their customers according to A, B or C
categories in the location around the country. This
visually gives you an idea of where your key customers are,
shows you how much travelling time you're going to be
spending getting towards important customers, and also
highlights the geographic areas that you need to have good
service in, regular calls in, effective call cycles, and
most of all how to plan your sales force coverage according
to your existing customer base and known customer potential.
Along the way of achieving this wall map, it forces you to
look at customer revenue results, and also identify any
customers that are high in revenue but also high in
servicing costs either by their method of operation or the
distances you have to travel. You very quickly see where
your best customers are located, and you can do a comparison
with your best sales people as to whether they have the
existing potential in their geographic area or whether they
are wasting their time.
My last client that I got to do this exercise now has a very
clear view of where he should base his next distribution
location, where he should restructure his sales force, and
best of all he had the rest of the management team and the
sales and the customer service people coming and looking at
the map and realising where the potential for improvement
was. All it requires is a couple of very large maps, a bit
of wall space, and some different coloured pins.
Interesting Book
"The 8th Habit" Stephen Covey's new book following up on the
five years' old "7 Habits" is a great read, and really
focuses on supporting my messages of people doing business
with people, people handling change, coaching people's
potential, and setting standards that everybody
understands. Some really good messages in this book, if you
get a chance go and buy yourself a copy and read it. It
will certainly motivate you to managing your company and
your staff far better, and most of all it will re-enforce
some commonsense basics and provide some new ideas. The CD
supplied in the copy that I've bought has some one and two
minute DVD movies, and will prove great for showing at your
sales meetings, your staff meetings, or even at customer
presentations.
Talking about books, coming up in 2005 will be a new reprint
of my book "Practical Marketing in New Zealand" and the
launch of "Selling Opportunities" which will be a book on
sales, and an updated reprint of "Marketing and the Law",
and if that wasn't enough to keep you busy I've also
scheduled to record another double CD set of sales and
marketing tips.
Sales and Marketing Institute of NZ
I guess many of you will know that I am President of this
professional institute, and I have agreed to take it on for
another year (2005), and I really do encourage you to
participate in the events in Auckland, Wellington or
Christchurch. It's a great organisation for managers and
CEOs to attend a once a month leadership event, for
marketing managers and marketing people to attend the
marketing strategy lunches, and for sales people and sales
managers to attend the sales management breakfasts. You can
check out more on this organisation on
www.salesmarketing.org.nz.
In March of 2005, the institute will be announcing details
of the first New Zealand Sales and Marketing Awards, which
will be focused on recognising its sales people, sales
managers, marketing managers who create fabulous results for
their clients and customers.
I encourage you to recognise yourself, and your top
performers, by encouraging them to enter, or for your own
organisation to enter.
Quick Checklist of 2005 Start up Questions to ask
yourself about your business
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What's your current customer acquisition cost?
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How much time do your sales reps spend face to face?
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How successful is your quotes and winning tenders
ratio?
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How many of your A category customers increased
their business during last year?
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How many D category customers should you be
terminating relationships with this year?
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How much information is contained within your
database, eg. cellphone numbers, email addresses,
text capable cellphone indicators of your key
customers?
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What do the measurement results show for your last
advertising or promotional campaign in numbers of
additional sales generated, customers gained, or
brand awareness?
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What is your budget planning process and how much of
your budget ownership is taken by your sales or
customer service or marketing team as being their
responsibility to achieve?
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What has your customer complaint register shown that
you need to improve on?
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How responsive is your direct marketing campaign?
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When was the last time every member of your sales or
customer service or marketing team checked your own
company's website, and/or checked your main other
suppliers' websites?
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What budget have you set yourself for the month of
September 2005 when the general election may be
held?
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How many client referrals did you receive during
last year?
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What marketing objectives would you like to achieve
per quarter for each quarter of 2005?
New Additions to the Geewiz Website
Up on the website are the full details of the 2005
seminar schedule for public seminars in New Zealand, and it
shows all the details of where seminars will be held in the
main cities of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch plus
also Whangarei, Dargaville, Kerikeri, Hamilton, Rotorua,
Tauranga, Taupo, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Napier, Nelson,
Blenheim, Greymouth, Timaru, Dunedin and Invercargill, and
if I have missed out any cities contact me for a
personalised presentation! In addition I will be presenting
overseas during 2005 in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore,
Philippines and Vietnam at this stage before I get any other
further bookings.
You can book seminars online, or of course at any one of my
public seminar partners - Chambers of Commerce or EMA in the
relevant locations. Here is the schedule for the first
three months and if you go onto the website you can see the
full twelve months.
I am available for in-company conference speaking, seminars,
workshops and adding to the skills of your team and look
forward to working with you and the members your sales and
marketing and customer service teams.
Seminars for February, March & April
| DATE |
DESCRIPTION |
LOCATION |
| 1 Feb |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Wellington |
| 2 Feb |
Creating a Strategic Sales
Marketing Plan |
Wellington |
| 2 Feb |
Managing Your Sales Team
Effectively |
Wellington |
| 22 Feb |
Sales Basics |
Auckland Chamber |
| 2 March |
Prospecting for Profit |
Biz Northland Kerikeri |
| 2 March |
Dealing with Awkward & Difficult
Customers |
Biz Northland Kerikeri |
| 3 March |
Sales |
Biz Northland Kerikeri |
| 3 March |
Major Account Development |
Biz Northland Kerikeri |
| 4 March |
Selling on the Phone |
Biz Northland Kerikeri |
| 9 March |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Christchurch, CECC |
| 10 March |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Timaru, CECC |
| 11 March |
Dealing with Awkward & Difficult
Customers |
Timaru, CECC |
| 11 March |
Time ManagementSeminar |
Timaru, CECC |
| 14 March |
Marketing Principles |
EMA Northern, Auckland |
| 22 March |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Auckland Chamber |
| 23 March |
Time Management Seminar |
Rotorua Chamber |
| 23 March |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Rotorua Chamber |
| 24 March |
Be a Great Supervisor |
Rotorua Chamber |
| 24 March |
Presentation Skills |
Rotorua Chamber |
| 29 March |
Debtor Control - Collect & Keep
Customers |
Auckland Chamber |
| 30 March |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Wellington |
| 31 March |
Dealing with Awkward & Difficult
Customers |
Wellington |
| 31 March |
Major Account Development |
Wellington |
| 12 April |
Strategic Key Accounts - Akld
Univ Short Courses |
Auckland University |
| 13 April |
Strategic Key Accounts - Akld
Univ Short Courses |
Auckland University |
| 18 April |
Marketing Your Professional
Services |
Auckland Chamber |
| 19 April |
Time Management Seminar |
Bus Dev Centre, Hamilton |
| 19 April |
Time Management Seminar (4-6pm) |
Tauranga Chamber |
| 20 April |
Helping the Decisions (Sales
Basics 2) |
Tauranga Chamber |
| 20 April |
Dealing with Awkward & Difficult
Customers |
Tauranga Chamber |
| 21 April |
Collect Your Debts |
Tauranga Chamber |
| 22 April |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Auckland Chamber |
| 27 April |
Sales Basics Seminar |
Auckland Chamber |
| 29 April |
Strategic Sales Skills |
Auckland Chamber |
Welcome to New Geewiz Friends:
| - Indesign |
- HTC Specialised Tooling |
| - Donovans Chocolates |
- Kudos Software |
| - Rodney Wayne |
- Guardian Properties NZ |
| - Phonak |
- Janiking |
| - Checkpoint Meto |
- Innovative Travel |
| - Worksinc |
- Woodstyles |
| - Neville Newcombe |
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The Outlook for 2005
If we listen to all of the media commentators and the
economists, 2005 is being spoken about as being a tough year
with possible downsizing from the general election, and
slowing down of the economy from less building consents,
less immigration, and a possible drop in exports to South
East Asia.
But if you remember they were saying this at the beginning
of 2004, and most of us had a very good year with full
attention to looking after customers, sticking to our
strategies, focusing on our target segment markets, and
delivering on our promises, so my call is that problems will
only be opportunities, and if I can do something better than
yesterday every day, I know I will exceed my perception of
the result.
Kind regards,
Richard P. Gee
www.geewiz.co.nz
www.professionalspeakersnz.com
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