Geewiz News

MARCH/APRIL 2003

Greetings Friend of Geewiz

In this issue:

- What lessons can we learn from the America’s Cup?

- Customer relationship management databases

- The power of texting

- Launch of Successful Events

- NZ Sales Manager book succeeds

- The world of barter

- Setting objectives and targets that are measurable

- Upcoming seminars

- Book seminars online and save

- Red Rose Day

What lessons can we learn from the America ’s Cup for your sales team and your marketing efforts?

Far from being a disaster, there are lessons you can apply to the management of your sales team and your marketing effort from the America’s Cup Team New Zealand loss.

The first, most important, lesson is preparation.  Use the Team New Zealand situation as a chance to review the resources, the equipment, the people, and the team work and leadership amongst your team.  Focus on the power of teams, focus on the need for strong leadership, and focus on continuously reviewing our resources, be they equipment such as vehicles, laptops, PDAs, or even more importantly, the resources amongst the people.

Take a long, hard look at your team and its resources, and see what you are going to need over the next 3 years to build on to make this team function like a team, and most of all, achieve its objectives.

There are lessons in the America’s Cup loss that apply to losing a sale or having the marketing of a new product fail, and that is, that you take a long, hard look at what you’ve done, question why, and then look for lessons that you can learn to apply to the future.

Don’t stop and be self-critical, don’t tear your team apart, but most of all, look at how you can build the team to go on to do even better things. 

Team New Zealand need to take a long, hard look at the objectives they set, their method of carrying out via their strategies, and the resource they put into the people, and where they intend to position themselves for the next challenge to the Cup.  Most of all, they need to ask why.

In a tender or quote situation, a normal sales situation, win or lose, you need to ask why.

CRM and databases

We hear a lot about CRM these days, and databases, but instead of perhaps changing to the latest new fashion software, what about reviewing within your existing software, such simple things as Microsoft Outlook, ACT, Sales Track, and some of the many CRM packages around, and have a look to see whether you are indeed collecting all the data that you should be collecting now.

Apart from the minimum data of name, address, phone, fax, postal box, etc, how good are you at ensuring that you collect email addresses, website addresses, and finding out whether the cellphone is text-capable, finding out whether there is an email address direct to a cellphone, finding out perhaps from the customer exactly how they would like to be communicated, by simply asking them on your credit application or your new accounts registration form.

It’s pointless converting to a new software database if your team are not already collecting all these data sources right now, as a future basis of communication.

Coming up at one of my future Auckland SMEI sales manager breakfasts is a very good presentation on how you can use some of this simple database information and turn it into interactive spreadsheets for direct marketing communication.

Check out the basic call sheet that you have, and then the database records that you’re keeping on your existing clients, and of course remember the 80/20 rule: get the top 20% that are giving you 80% of the business, data records correct and then worry about the rest later.

Interactive texting

Of course, if you’ve been following my earlier comment about database management, you’ll see that I’ve mentioned finding out whether your customer or client’s cellphone is text-capable.

You’ve only got to look at what the big consumer marketing companies, such as Coca Cola, Xtra, Toyota, have done over the summer season with inviting people with text-capable cellphones to enter a competition or to register to receive information, and of course this has built up massive databases – in one case 680,000 in 24 hours, in another case 1.2 million over 6 weeks.  This whole power of the database of text-capable phones, when harnessed by being able to send a promotional message to those text-capable phones about some special offer, special promotion, special event that is happening, in a short time frame, opens up more than the possibilities of perhaps confirming to your customer that the order is on the way (which is much cheaper than cellphone usage of course), or giving a short message about Warrant of Fitnesses or special offers all by instant texting.  Of course, once you have the database, and you carefully manage that database, you can keep on sending repetitive special promotional offers for extremely low cost and personal intimacy with the text phone owner.

Texting is going to be the future email spamming if done badly, or the future interactive communication with select groups of customer, if managed properly.

Another media has opened up – that of interactive texting.

Successful Events

You will receive a separate Geewiz News specially on the launch of Successful Events next week.  Support New Zealand businesses, hear about the successes of New Zealand businesses, see who the New Zealand business leaders and heroes really are, by way of a monthly breakfast or a monthly morning event where you as a Geewiz supporter and your business associates can come along and learn from the lessons of others as well as be inspired by the successes.

It’s time New Zealand businesses learnt from each other.

Take advantage of the offer to become either a monthly member, a 6-monthly member, or a 12-monthly member.  I look forward to sharing those business successes with you.

If you want to check out more, go to www.successful.co.nz.

 New Zealand Sales Management book a big hit with Telecom

My latest book, published by CCH, New Zealand Sales Management, as been very successful with many businesses, and the number of emails received commenting on how practical the book is, the practical ideas, is further supported by a great book review by the National Sales Manager for Telecom, who subsequently went ahead and ordered 30 copies of the book for all of his Telecom sales managers to take up the practical advice.

Copies of NZ Sales Management are still available in leading business book stores, although you might have to look for the copies amongst the overseas stuff, or on my website, www.geewiz.co.nz, or on the publisher’s website, www.cch.co.nz, and your investment is only $69.95 for the first book written on sales management of New Zealand sales reps, and the best selling business book being the first New Zealand sales management book in New Zealand.  Take advantage of what others are picking up, it’s practical, it works, it’s stimulating, and it’s designed for your business.

Barter?

Additional business growth, additional sales growth, new customer and client bases, is always the objective of most sales managers and marketing managers for the coming year.

An innovative, but controlled, manner of building that customer base is to use barter, in its many forms.

Barter can be simply an exchange of goods and services with a customer, the exchange of goods and services that are subsequently resold to return revenue back to the companies.  However, this can be cumbersome.  A much easier way is to use either one of the main exchanges that exist for barter.  These are Bartercard NZ Ltd, part of an international Bartercard group, and an Australian company, BBX (Business Barter Exchange) concept.

Both these organisations can explain how their trading actually works, however the biggest advantage of barter growth is that the customers are readily identified, every income that you take in from a barter customer has to be spent with a barter supplier, so you actually keep the economy wheel running within an internal economic market.

Both barter exchanges have high fees, but included in these fees are something that normal credit cards don’t give you; that is promotion of barter brand, catalogues, and marketing effort to other barter members.

I have personal experience of both the major barter exchanges in New Zealand, and have found it very useful to grow additional business that I perhaps would not have achieved from clients and customers who may not have heard of me had I not been able to tap into the exclusive customer bases of these barter exchanges, which in New Zealand total approximately 6,000 businesses, customers, and clients.

Check out the websites, www.bartercard.co.nz, and www.bbx.co.nz, for further information.

I don’t have a problem spending my barter funding, as I particularly go to the directory of other barter suppliers and merchants, and seek somebody who can supply me at competitive rates with my purchases, be they printing or specialty services.

When I need to exchange the barter funds for cash, I simply purchase goods in barter and then on sell them for cash.

It really is nothing more than a separate bank account of trading with a specialty group of customers.

Setting objectives and targets for 2003

At this time of the year it is worthwhile considering, in addition to setting those budgets, marketing plans, strategy plans, that ideally for the coming financial year with your key clients (that is, the top 20%) you need to set objectives for the sales reps, sales team, sales management, or marketing teams, to achieve with these customers.

The objectives need to follow the SMART acronym (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timeframe) to be useable, and should be very much achievable on a personalised customer basis.

Ideally, the objectives are set by the sales reps or product managers within your marketing division, so they take ownership, and reviewed with the customers or clients so they accept that those objectives are realistic for both the client as a customer, and you as the selling organisation, to work towards.

Don’t always consider sales growth, sales revenue, perhaps you can look at objectives for better penetration of the product range, better quantity of services used, or target market penetration, segment development, customer acquisition costs reduction, distribution objectives, product knowledge, and a host of more practical objectives that are workable which combined as a whole will achieve added revenue results.

It might be worthwhile to consider the difference between what you set –

• Aims – are statements of things you’d like to achieve given some time.
• Objectives – are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, within timeframes, statements of specific intent over a time activity to achieve, given the right use of resources.
• Targets – are specific, customer orientated, or product orientated short-term promotional targets which the achievement of objectives will help the obtaining of the target.
• Strategies – are how you are going to achieve the objective.

Don’t get them confused, focus on what’s going to be best for you to run your sales or your marketing team, and that is measurable.  That’s why Objectives and Strategies will always win out over Aims and Targets.

Seminars for the next few months

Here are my seminars that are running in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and Hamilton.

You can book these seminars directly with the partners involved, or save yourself some time and save yourself $20 by registering on my website for the particular seminar and paying for it by credit card.

Go to my website, www.geewiz.co.nz, then either go to Geewiz Seminars or to the Seminars button, and register your interest in the particular seminars.

RED CROSS ROSE DAY – March 27th

A message from Richard Blakeborough at the Red Cross:

If your business is in the Canterbury, West Coast, Timaru, region then why not brighten your office, impress your staff and customers and support a national charity?

Its easy – click on this email and I will arrange it for you

richard.blakeborough@redc ross.org.nz

Every year the Red Cross sell roses to raise funds to support its work.. As you are a busy person, I will arrange to have either 12 or 24 roses delivered to your office, on 25th March,  - the cost is $24 for 12, or $50 for 24 – no delivery fee. The roses will be wrapped and ribboned, and ready for display or gift. It’s part of our Business Bunches programme and of course , if you want a cheap way to give all your customers or staff a red rose – I am sure we can accommodate that as well

Why do we fundraise?

We accept no direct government funding for our services and programmes

What do we do?

Meals on wheels

First Aid Training – OSH and NZQA approved

Tracing and Messaging

Fire Support + Emergency Management

International Humanitarian Law – Geneva Conventions/Landmines

International Disaster & Development Programmes

Thanks to all my friends of Geewiz, and also I look forward to seeing you at the Successful Events if it suits your business needs.

Kind regards, and looking forward to hearing of your successes during 2003,

Richard P. Gee

richard@geewiz.co.nz       richard@richardgeewiz.com      richard@richardgeewiz.biz

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