Welcome to Geewiz News! In this issue you will find:

• Book promotion success
• Promoting your service point of difference
• Marketing your website content
• Seminars coming up

Thanks to all of the friends of Geewiz who attended the book launches for New Zealand Sales Management. We all had a lot of fun, and the very positive comments that have come back from people who have purchased the book, either at the book launches or on the websites or in the retail stores, really supports that this practical book is going to be very useful for those people who want to run their sales teams more effectively and efficiently than ever before.

By demand from my Hamilton friends of Geewiz, on the 18^th of September (Wednesday night), there will be a book launch for New Zealand Sales Management hosted by BBX (Business Barter International) at the Great Room at The Narrows Landing, Mystery Creek, near the Hamilton Airport, 5.30 to 7.30pm. A welcome drink and refreshments provided, and for all of those Waikato business people, come along and enjoy the success of New Zealand Sales Management and take the opportunity to network with other Waikato business people, and promote your business, as well as getting your own special Hamilton book launch and hear some ideas on setting remuneration packages for sales reps. Participation is free, but you do need to register for catering purposes, and also to receive a special voucher which is redeemable on the night for a special price on the book and Richard’s CD. To register, go to the website, www.geewiz.co.nz.

There’s still the opportunity to purchase copies of the book, and if you order over my website, www.geewiz.co.nz, I will personally autograph the book before it is mailed to you.

Thanks for your emails, telephone calls, and positive feedback on this book.

Another success is a another new book, Marketing and the Law, published by Financial & Business Advisor, available to subscribers of Financial & Business Advisor or on my website, www.geewiz.co.nz.

This publication, which focuses on the laws in New Zealand that you need to, as a sales and marketing manager or executive, be aware of, and the ramifications of those laws on your business strategies, your selling strategies, your marketing communication messages, and gives an overview of the key points of each of the laws that will assist you in understanding not only what to look out for, but also what to do to protect your products or your services and your marketing and sales strategies in the marketplace.

This book will give you the background so that you can question further from your legal advisors, the application of the law to your own particular situation.

Communicating your points of difference in your service standards

Many companies provide excellent service standards in areas such as phone answering, quote answering, deliveries, queries and problem solving, people’s knowledge, technical expertise, and much more.

These points of service difference can be used to help increase your sales if you communicate to your existing customers and potential new clients, the expectations of service that they can expect when they do business with you.

This helps to get the customer making an informed buying decision, because they understand the level of expertise and service that will be delivered to them.

Examples of creating the communication to the customer about your service experience could be as follows:

• Order this morning, delivery this afternoon
• If it’s not in stock, we’ll tell you at your time of ordering
• The price you are quoted will be the price you will be invoiced
• We will return your phone messages within 30 minutes
• We will answer your email/web enquiries within 60 minutes
• Our people love to use their experience to help you solve your problems
• Turn your problems into opportunities with our expertise
• Safe, online credit card transactions for speedy delivery to you
• 24 hours, 7 days a week service, for help when you need it
• After business hours, service by experienced, qualified technical tradespeople

These examples and other benefit examples to the customer, when put in a service expectations charter format, whereby you list five or six key service expectations customers have the right to expect from you, and then publish them on your website, in your written brochures, in your quotations, in your tender documents, in your sales aids, in your marketing promotional material, will help to differentiate you from other suppliers in the marketplace and establish how great you are at customer service.

Make sure that you regularly communicate the service expectations, and you will find your customers start repeating back to you the service that you’re giving that matches their expectations, and best of all they use word-of-mouth comments to give referrals to other business associates to use you because of your service expectations.

Never assume that the customer will expect good service from you, or suitable service standards – you need to be constantly informing them, by every communication method possible, how easy it is to enjoy really great customer service when doing business with your company.

Marketing your website – a few tips
Websites have been around as a business communication tool since 1995, and that’s given us over 7 years of coming to grips with this media choice as a way of providing information easily, fast, quickly, and relevant to both existing customers and potential customers.

But where do you promote your website address, and most of all, details of what you will find on the website?
Examples of good places to list the website content are:

• Your business card – on the back of your business card make a list on separate lines of all of the section headers on your website, to let customers know what they could expect to find.
• Brochures – put in a panel on your brochure, showing your website address and the contents of your website, to encourage people who want to seek further information to go looking.
• Quotes and tenders – put in a table or a box with details about your website and the contents, into every quote or tender document so that potential new prospects get an opportunity to find out where they can get more information if they need it.
• Your email signature – simply by listing underneath your email signature "what you will find on our website" with a list of contents, will help to drive people to your website using emails.
• Face to face sales presentations, conference speaking, seminars and workshops, are ideal places to refer people to your website, not only by letting them know your address, but letting them know what they can expect to find on the website as far as content goes.
• General media – in your magazine advertisements, newspaper advertisements, perhaps even radio or TV, refer people to the content that they can expect to find on your website. This then backs up your other media choices, but drives them to a measurable area of how many people will visit your website as a result.

How to get started promoting the content of your website? Go into your existing website and make a list of the pages and the content on the pages, and then reduce that down to one line with 6 to 7 words to describe exactly what they’ll find on that particular page.

Then make sure it starts getting printed on invoices, business cards, booklets, brochures, customer sales aid material, and also send out an email to customers letting them know what is new on your website and also what they can expect to find:

For example, on www.geewiz.co.nz, you will find:

• Personal profile of Richard P. Gee
• Client examples of marketing success
• Testimonials and references
• Free downloads, tips and news
• Books, CD, Report Plans to Purchase
• Seminar dates, descriptions and topics of seminars
• Photos of participants at seminars and workshops
• Conference speaking topics
• Geewiz news and how to register online
• Sales and marketing vacancies – recommendations and referrals
• New material in the free downloads every month

As can be seen by that short listing, which will fit onto the back of a business card, put on a tender or a quote, and even create into a letterhead, is a very good information source as to what you can expect to find

What you’ll find on www.successful.co.nz

• Details about the philosophy of being successful
• Successful stories about NZ and overseas businesses
• Successful stories about people in business
• Ability to register for successful seminars and breakfasts
• Free information and downloads

As can be seen, check out the website and see if the information is of interest to you

Take advantage now to make sure you communicate exactly what people can expect to find on their website so they will become excited, enticed to go and visit, and after the visit, enthused to tell their friends and business associates.

• Collins Mitre 10 stores Ashburton, Timaru, Oamaru
• Thode Knife & Saw
• Saks Retail Group, Newmarket and Auckland City
• Adcorp, graphic advertising agency in Wellington
• Farmlands, lower North Island group
• Spandex
• Malcolm Pacific
• Executive Taskforce
• Auckland Junior Chamber of Commerce

• NZ Accelerated Learning Convention, 26^th, 27^th, 28^th September. Come along and share with people who specialise in training, presenting seminars, and working with people to help them learn new skills. Check out the details on www.nzalc.co.nz.
• National Speakers International Conference, being held 22^nd to 24^th November at the Hilton Hotel. For more details check out www.nsa.org.nz.
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Thanks for sharing your success with me at the launch of my new book, New Zealand Sales Management, and enjoy the opportunities that are out there to build your business over the next few months

Richard Gee.