"Owner's Manual" - 12 Rules for Sales & Marketing Survival

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Graham Gilley, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

“Owner’s Manual” – 12 Rules for Sales & Marketing Survival

Partial version of e Paper…see bottom of this post for more information.

RULE # 12
Become a Trophy Account
Sales people do not have the benefit of being a client – it is the privilege of being a product (brand, service or experience) marketer.
From a market development perspective, the most efficient way to strengthen your brand is to become a trophy account.
To qualify, there must be a two way relationship. It does not mean to take advantage of a supplier or becoming a charity case, rather this strategy means finding a supplier who finds your relationship valuable and generating a positive win-win situation for both parties. Think of it in terms a successful co-operative advertising program. The balance of power lies in the perception – either you as an “up and coming” client or an “up and coming” supplier.
What do you offer as a trophy client (think start up)? Likely not a large initial budget. But perhaps an innovative niche market attractive to your supplier, a vision, future profitability, an opportunity for a creative approach that might otherwise be considered or maybe it is training for a new creative group.
What else? Perhaps an agreement to be a testimonial trophy account on future account pitches, the value of promotional partnerships with like minded clients or your products and services in lieu of standard billing. The reality is we all need to be creative to maximize the impact of a fickle market. Become a trophy account and maximize your budget and partnership value. As we always like to note, if you aren’t being strategic, your competition is.

RULE # 11

Simplify your Business Process!
How many binders or electronic files do you have in your workspace around process?
Think about it – safety manuals, crisis management, emergency procedures, strategic plans, board governance, company administration – the list could be endless.
The reality is that in a case of need, we do not reach for this type of information and flip through dozens of pages in search of the right thing to do. Your marketing and sales plan is no different. It sets the road map and triggers budget approval, but once it is written, how often is it re-visited by anyone other than maybe, the author?
Common sense dictates that we need to communicate our business processes for stakeholders to see and embrace knowing that only a small portion (said to be less than 10%) of information that we absorb is retained.

The exercise of circulating the business plan and it’s accompanied flowcharts (sometimes referred to as job justification) is for you as a leader to implement. Leadership skills then take over and allow others to follow the correct path of action. If they want and need to know more, high performing talent will ask – if they don’t, that tells you even more.
We need to simplify plans to give them a chance at success. My recommended route is to formulate a business plan around four simply understood stages -
RESPONSE, ANTICIPATION, EXPERIENCE AND REFERRAL
After each stage is defined and built out, we use the stages as a checkpoint and ask the questions… will our actions…
• be successful in creating the desired level of response?
• build a level of anticipation that excites the market?
• add to the overall experience and how would we define that?
• have we given the customers or target market an outlet to emote and refer more business?

Simple understood business processes will drive your team to know what to do – and what to avoid. The role and the action is understood to be in support of the strategy. More importantly, a simply process is efficient and accessible more than any blue binder on a shelf.

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