When I recently got out of a taxi I noticed the branding on the side of the cab, I wondered how much it would cost to advertise my business on a Liverpool Black Cab. I also spend a lot of time carrying out PR exercises and so on to maintain the profile of the business.
I met recently with the guy behind this in Liverpool and was completely blown away:
How much do you think all of this costs?
You talk they listen, they talk you listen. You talk they listen, they talk YOU listen.
I got a call yesterday from a lady looking to provide an answer to my recruitment needs. Despite me saying very early on in the conversation that I have now filled the position that I had previously and was very excited about my new team member she continued to talk over me explaining what their company provides when looking for a candidate (did I care at this point? NO) – STRIKE 1, she was very amiable but I took a dislike to her when she didn’t seem to hear me say that my position was no longer vacant. After telling her again that I didn’t have a current vacancy she then said ‘we’d like to come and see you to discuss your current vacancy” STRIKE 2.
If I was pushed by this woman and agreed to a meeting, would that meeting have led to any business?
If you arrive at STRIKE 3 and secure an appointment you need to know that there is not enough mutual respect at this point to do any sort of business. Your appointment WILL cancel.
Talk, LISTEN, talk, LISTEN, talk, LISTEN - Children do it… why don’t you?
We’re throwing Akay into the mix!!!
He is a very confident and motivated individual with a logical thought process and I for one am very, very, very excited to welcome him to team Approach.
Would you buy a car from this man?
Akay comes with over 15 years invaluable sales and management experience and brings a wealth of knowledge to our operations… His role is primarily the Account Manager for one of our key clients but as he is used to working in high pressure, target driven environments he will be involved in some of our other projects too.
I was going to write a blog about one of the more recent marketing tools, the QR Code, (ours is below and if you scan with your phone you will see how truly impressive it is). A friend forwarded me the attached blog and as this chap has written it so well I figured why duplicate my own workload when I am more than comfortable with sharing:
A conversation that took place yesterday on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ApproachSalesServices) after I’d posted my code as our profile picture:
Sean: “Rach: What’s the benefit of using this for non-retail business? Looks interesting..”
Me: “Marketing tracking dude. If I have 4 different campaigns running at the same time I create 4 different codes to use on the lit, fliers, blog etc. When someone goes through a code it logs a response. I then know where my time is best spent…. It’s clever stuff! Imagine 4 doors, all exactly the same to look at but with a picture of coffee, tea, chai latte and water shown with the relevant code. If more people go for water then I know it’s either really hot outside or it is the preferred beverage. I would then offer 4 cold drinks with their own codes and do the exercise again. Loving this loads lol.”
You can also determine which landing page a prospect is taken to by the code they come in on to personalise their whole experience…
The above is a snapshot of some of the benefits from my perspective but if you flip it and look at the benefits to the end user (the client or prospect); you are again demonstrating that you value their time by offering options to make their whole experience easy. They have all of the details that they could possibly need instantly instead of having to search through databases for your contact details, Google to find your web address, look up your location (do people still use paper maps or the Yellow Pages?) and so on. By putting individual codes on relevant subjects you are taking them to the right landing page, to the information that interests them instantly.
Oh, and did I mention that this took me under 5 minutes to create?
http://www.scanme.com/
http://youngblackandmotivated.com/2010/10/10/new-barcodes-that-save-time/
Within every organisation the sales cycle varies and unless you start by making the effort to understand the intricacies of your sales cycle, a pipeline is virtually unmanageable.
Throughout a project we are continuously mapping out your prospects sales cycle, with each stage of the process we highlight the actions that have been identified and with careful management and nurturing of your prospects, the result will be a real, honest and genuine pipeline of opportunities.
The added value to this service is that you then have a clear prospect sales cycle identified, the critical interactions that take place along that process are highlighted and explained to you (post project), you have hit rates, ratios and clear, readable information to take away and implement into your own sales team. Maybe you don’t have a sales team and this information would allow you to put one in place?
Changing your approach WILL change your results!
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