It's Snow Excuse Not to be Selling

Is it deep and crisp and even where you are?

Snow has covered much of the UK overnight and more is forecast. Of course this causes major disruption to all our normal activities but it does provide big sales and marketing opportunities (not least, of course, if you’re stocking shovels). If it hasn’t affected you where you are it may well be that it’s affected some of your customers.

Many people who are usually in a busy office may be at home today and will have only their inbox and their mobile to keep them company (apart from perhaps overly-excitable, off-school children). No colleagues by the water machine or office politics issues to take their attention. Even in full offices today, normal business won’t happen in quite the same way. Customers will be away, deliveries and meetings won’t take place, and there will be a very different atmosphere.

So take advantage. What can you do to keep in touch with your customers today? What can you do to help them? Could today be the day when you just call the people you need to keep in touch with but never seem to get round to doing? Could you review your marketing plan or your sales pipeline? Could you send a relevant, personal email to people? Could you write that direct mail letter you’ve not got round to? Could you do a sales plan that helps you with your major objections? These are the days when you can gain a real advantage over lazier competitors.

The other big advantage you have is that people remember the conversations they had and the things they did on days like this. So if your customers have snow – even if you don’t – they are far more likely to remember whatever you do today.

Take advantage.

Then go tobogganing in your lunch hour.

How to Increase Retail Sales in 2009

The widely predicted January retail bloodbath has begun as early and viciously as the sales did a few weeks before Christmas. The outcome of this will change not only the business landscape but also the landscapes of many towns. Yet retailers have let it happen to themselves in so many cases by sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring simple sales and marketing practices.

Retailers are blaming the economic situation. Mmm. And they’re blaming online e-tailers. What?!

The facts are that ‘physical’ retailers have seen the internet & economic trends coming and done either little or nothing about them in most cases. They have failed to understand why people visit shops and why people buy online, and what the relative advantages of both are. The simple fact that many online retailers have seen themselves as fighting the internet for the last decade rather than embracing it is just beyond belief.

Most retailers believe that the online e-tailers have them beaten because of price. Wrong. Or convenience. Wrong again. The main reason that e-tailers are forging ahead is because of information. It’s the way that e-tailers are able to get the details of prospects and customers and use that information intelligently that is key. An online e-tailer can continually remind its customers and prospects exactly why they should do business with them; whether that’s because of price (or the perception of better pricing), convenience or any other USP.

The sad thing is, physical retailers could have been doing this for years but it never occurred to them. It never occurred to them to get their customers’ details let alone to continually keep in touch with them or offer them relevant new products. It never crossed their minds to continually tell them about a home delivery service because they never bothered to dream one up. They never thought about telling everybody who bought Widget LX that Widget GLX had just been launched, or about the wonderful in-shop service, the advantages of professional fitting, or of their…. you get the point.

If you’re in retail and have no system of gathering and effectively using customer details – however manually – then get very excited. Implementing some basic practices here could have an utterly amazing effect on your business at a time when many in the sector don’t know what to do apart from slash prices still further.

Beating Recession

Do you know what I dislike most about recession?

It’s nothing to do with economics, it’s those people who knock confidence in others.

It’s people who would otherwise deem themselves to be intelligent business people (or journalists) suddenly deciding that their opinion about recession is right and spouting it out here, there and everywhere. I’m not talking about those with some opinion, I’m talking about those that jabber on and on incessantly about how we should mark their words about the impending end of world economics as we know them.

The economic tide is one thing, but mate-down-the-pub economists really wind me up. I studied economics at A-level, I’ve studied accounting and business finance, I’ve run a business in finance that put packages together for listed companies, I’ve worked with investors, I’ve worked with businesses going through IPOs, I’ve talked to halls full of business people about financing on behalf of Business Link, and I get email updates on policy from the Treasury. But can I tell you what’s going to happen next year? Of course not. Is my macro economic judgement worth anything to your business? Probably not.

I heard an ‘expert’ business advisor at a conference on Tuesday night who in the same breath told everyone how well his own business was doing right now, but that he wasn’t going to grow his business because he was fearful about recession. My only advice would be not to use that advisor.


Do you get the facts?

As is recently well documented, recession is defined by having two successive quarters of negative growth. One quarter (which we have now ‘officially’ had) could be a blip. But this is the economic definition, what we should be concerned about is what it really means.

All that’s happening is that a pie (the economy) that’s been growing nicely for many years is now going to shrink a tiny bit. Last quarter our economy shrunk by 0.1%. Yesterday’s predictions by Mervyn King were that next year the economy could shrink by as much as 2%.

Now get real. If your business’ sales dipped by 2% could you survive? Most would. And that’s an average. Some sectors will be hit worse – estate agents, mortgage brokers, motor manufacturers, furniture companies – which means, by the law of averages that other sectors will do better. And even that’s not the whole picture. The biggest influence on your business is not the wider economy – it never has been. It’s YOU and your ability to make decisions. If you can make a decision to go and get a bit more of the pie, or even a bit of a different part of the pie, then your figures can look very different.


Do you know what I love about recession?

That’s precisely what I love about recession – the huge opportunity for those that realise that they alone are the key. For those that stop frightening themselves with all this macro economic stuff and deal with what’s actually happening right in front of them, there is actually more opportunity than ever before. My sales training programmes are going through the roof at the moment. Why? Because there are plenty of business owners out there that understand that whilst their competitors act like that daft business advisor, they can thrive – by maximising their share of the market.

It’s that kind of Darwinian aspect that I love. Those that go prowling NOW, those that are the fittest of their species will prosper. And note – it’s not the biggest, the flashest, or the proudest. It’s the fittest; the most alert, agile and ravenous that survive. And prosper.

For those that really want it, NOW is your time. Your weapons are outstanding marketing and clinical sales skills. Go for it!