Business Development Professional Services

Working with a promotional product consultant can lead to increased revenue. Business gifts used to foster customer goodwill and retention (retain) are the most common use for promotional items at 18.5%. Here are the top reasons to work with promotional products consultant...

Reason #1: Consultants are the experts in their field. There’s no need to spend all your time on the Internet or searching through catalogs - leave the hard work to the experts.

Reason #2: A great consultant goes beyond just selling products. To realize your goals, promotional products programs must be carefully planned, taking into consideration the audience, budget, the ultimate result to be gained. Sure you can buy products anywhere, but you want a solid plan and the goal in mind.

Reason #3: Professional consultants have access to vast product research resources, including an extensive database which contains more than 500,000 products. Have you really saved money if you get the mugs and they are not the right color? Is it worth the extra savings if you get the mugs and they are so breakable due to inferior materials that they are virtually unusable?

Reason #4: Consultants are in tune with the trends, including hot items and the newest products and processes. Many online services show you the promotional product ideas they want to sell; a qualified consultant will listen to what you want and help you find the right product for your needs.

Reason #5: Your consultant is more than just a salesperson. Chances are you will buy promotional products more than once in your life. Once a company uses a consultant, that relationship often continues for years—and even decades.

Reason #6: Personalized service is the role of a consultant. When going online, your selection is what the internet company determines to make available. When you work with a consultant, your selection is determined by your needs and goals, enhanced by the experience, creativity and recommendations of that consultant who has your best interests at heart. 

Reason #7: Industry consultants can offer experienced advice on how (and IF) to imprint items. You may have found the perfect key chain, but will your logo imprint on it? Will it be recognizable? Some things don’t work, or there might be something else that will work better.

Reason #8: Trained consultants can save you money in the long run. Many times, a price you see in a generic catalog or on the Internet does not cover many “hidden” costs involved. A consultant can help you avoid unexpected and unbudgeted costs by quoting the total price up-front.

Reason #9: Consultants will work with you to get your artwork imprinted properly. Say you want your company’s logo embroidered on a golf shirt. How do you ensure it will be done properly, and with the correct colors? A trained consultant can work with you to insure accurate transfer of your artwork.

Reason #10: Professional promotional products consultants can assist you in developing a workable distribution plan for your products. Distribution of a promotional product is as important as the item itself. Research shows that a carefully executed distribution plan significantly increases the effectiveness of promotional products.

I had two experiences the other day that left me shaking my head in disbelief. Both were solicitations for my business, one a radio commercial, the other, a direct telemarketer. 

First, the auto dealership. If it seems like I’ve been picking on them, having just bought two cars, I now remember why it takes me so long in-between purchases. The ad came blaring over the radio on my drive home. “We’ve had a great month at XYZ Auto, we’ve sold lots of cars and we want to keep our momentum going”. 

Whoa. When did my potentially buying a car turn into me caring about you keeping your momentum going? Sure, while I and probably most people prefer to do business with an organization that is doing well, I don’t want to be either beaten over the head with it nor have it made the first “feature and benefit” in your selling proposition. I have my own reasons for considering any purchase and trust me; it has nothing to do with what’s important to you. Not to say that I’m not a win-win kind of guy, I sure hope I am. But talk to me about what you can do for me first, not what I can do to help you.

Second, the business development professional services company. A telemarketer selling training services essentially teaching us how to get more business. The voice mail started with “Hi Brian, this is Donna, give me (no please) a call back, I’d like (why would I care what you’d like at this point?) to talk to you (not with) a little bit and tell you (not share with) what we have to offer”. 

Are you kidding me? No research. No value statement. No indication of what or how they could improve what I’m doing or sharing any relevant examples. 

Your marketing communications and sales process immediately creates the perception of your organization in the mind of prospective customers. As potential buyers of any product or service, we want to know what you can do for us, right away! 

Are your marketing communication strategies and are your marketing messages communicating your value to your intended target audience? If you do an honest assessment and determine the answer is no, you’ll want to change that, sooner rather than later. Always think about the customer first, you second.

To make our money stretch further, we are taking staycations, clipping coupons, shopping around for a better cell phone plan, and even switching to Geiko! A "savers" mentality can go a long way. But what about businesses? They are also doing things differently to offset the financial burden.

Businesses have a set of key components to make the New Normal more comfortable. The key components I’ve noticed colleagues and partners focus on are communication, sales, and product:

Communication: The past decade has paved the way for new methods of engaging clients and prospects in a way that can also give us unfiltered feedback and instant communication. We, as business professionals, need to find the right balance and medium and continue spreading our message. It could be through Facebook, Twitter, Web development, Blogs, Google or Yahoo Groups, an integrated marketing communications campaign, or all of the above.
 

Sales: A solid and working sales method must contain a team of strong advocates. Sales teams need to understand how the landscape has changed and be given tools to increase local lead generation and ultimately, success. We also can’t forget about the retention process that must occur after the sale is made; companies are recognizing this and we’re seeing a new title and position because of it -- Client Success Manager.

Product: You must believe in your product and be willing to use it yourself. Take a good look at what you are offering and see what services need to be tweaked or replaced to give your company an advantage.

The ”new normal” is how we should be thinking and operating our business no matter how good or bad the market is. Some of us may have lost sight of our key components for awhile and although yours might vary, be sure to make the adjustments as needed for continued success.

What is your company, or family, doing differently to save and improve success?

Blog Series Outline

1. Understanding a powerful motivator – the Consensus Principle
2. How Consensus can influence fellow executives and staff
3. Some ways marketers can use Consensus to influence consumers

Part One – The Persuasive Power of Social Proof

At some point in their professional lives, everyone needs to persuade someone.  Senior managers need buy-in and support for important initiatives.  Marketing professionals need to persuade their own company’s senior management about marketing programs while convincing consumers to buy their products.

Research in persuasion has uncovered a powerful motivator:  the desire to blend in with one’s peers.  Social psychologists refer to this influencing factor as Social Proof or, as persuasion expert Robert Cialdini, PhD terms it, the Consensus Principle. The effect of peer pressure on teenagers is well known.  Highly trained and experienced senior managers may wonder if one’s peers have much effect on adults, to say nothing of fellow executives.  They may find an answer in some of Dr. Cialdini’s research.  

As reported in the NY Times, electric utilities from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Sacramento, California have adopted his method for encouraging customers, all of whom are adults, to reduce their electrical consumption.  Electric bills from those utilities now include a graph showing how that individual household’s electrical consumption compares with the average amount consumed by neighbors.

This has had quite an effect.  In “Nudging People to Combat Climate Change,” author Peter Aldhous reported an unexpected consequence of telling consumers how their electrical usage stacked up against the average.  One utility was encouraged to see that those who consumed more than average reduced their electrical consumption.  But those who used less than average actually increased their electrical usage. Clearly, few would do this consciously – it happens automatically.  Social psychologists refer to the “magnetic middle,” the tendency for humans to unconsciously seek consensus with their peers.

It is evident that the unconscious desire to blend in with one’s peers does not disappear once teens become adults.  People will always be influenced by what others around them are doing.  Recognizing this tendency can help executives in all fields become more effective in persuading others to adopt their point of view and implement their plans.  How?  This will be covered in Part Two of this series, How Social Proof Can Motivate Members of Your Team.

Larry Rondeau is Senior Director of Research and Business Development at The Allied Group, a marketing communications company and full service fulfillment provider.

Personalization in email is great - when it works, and when it doesn't it can be pretty embarrassing for you and your organization. Nowadays people just expect there to be personalization in their emails so no one is really jumping out of their seats at this.

First things first - get the name right of the person you are emailing. This may sound like a no brainer but it's almost shocking how many automated emails I have gotten in which my name is spelled incorrectly, they call me Mathew, or the worst, 'Name'.

Activity driven content is a great way to personalize an email but be very careful with how personalized you have become. Heidi Tolliver-Nigro of the Digital Nirvana said it best with a recent post on their site. Heidi had signed up for a daily email. She received a welcome email from the potential client (lucky for them they were not marketing her). She received her daily email the next day which apparently she did not read. That lead to her next daily email reading:

Dear, Heidi.

You haven’t read your last lesson so this is a reminder to login and read your latest lesson below...

Eek! That is bad. Very, very bad! It's basically saying to your readers 'I am tracking your every move.' or as Heidi stated "I am tracking you—watching you from afar—so I know you haven’t opened the email yet. You signed up to read these, Heidi, and since I’m monitoring you, I’ve noticed that you are slacking. Get on the stick, girl!"

The same can be said here for a sales rep following up on a hot lead "Hi there I see that you have been on our website 20 times within the last week..." It's a BIG don't.

So remember: personalization is great (even though it doesn't do much to add revenue) just don't go overboard and keep it to a minimum because it can have the opposite effect you are looking for.

Source: Digital Nirvana