Two boys went out duck hunting for the first time. They were out in the cold morning for hours, and though ducks were everywhere they hadn’t been able to get even one. Finally, one boy says to the other, “Maybe we ought to give this up.” The other replies, “Naw, let’s give it a while longer.” “C’mon, let’s face it, we just ain’t duck hunters.” “Well, let’s keep trying. Maybe we’re just not throwing the dogs up high enough.”
Are you throwing your marketing & selling dollars around and not hitting any customers?
3 Reasons Sellers Advertise:
- Because their competition is advertising
- Because the media sales-person tells them they should advertise
- The only real reason to advertise – To make sales.
For most of us, even a lot of the big businesses, the days of marketing/advertising for name recognition are over. Every single cent we spend on marketing/advertising must give us a profitable return.
How do you choose where to spend your marketing/advertising dollars? It’s easy.
Never market/advertise if you can not measure the results. Of course the better you can measure the results of your marketing/advertising the more value you will receive from you marketing/advertising investment.
You can save a lot of your assets, money and time, by simply taking another approach to your marketing/advertising.
In the 1950s a glass manufacturing company invented their form of shatterproof glass. It was a remarkable product. Good for use in homes and industry. But because of its much higher selling cost the retailers, mom and pop hardware stores, did not feel they could sell it.
After a year of heavy, very expensive marketing and advertising which only produced lack luster sales, the company decided they needed to do something different, needed to take another approach in selling the shatterproof glass. They stopped all their traditional marketing/advertising and called all their salesmen in and presented them with their new sales program.
First they gave them all new marketing materials, flyers, fact sheets, and a piece of shatterproof glass. And then they introduced the first ever for the company sales contest. The salesman who sold the most shatterproof glass in the next six months would win a trip for him and his wife to the Bahamas. All the salesmen left the meeting with renewed enthusiasm.
At the end of the six months they gathered and announced Jim had won the trip. He had sold more safety glass than all the other salesmen combined. Astonished, the owners asked Jim how he did it. Jim said, “I knew I had to take another approach than everyone else to win the trip. So instead of just showing the customers the glass and reading the flyers I went back to the hammer section of their store. I picked up a hammer and took it to the counter where I had placed the demo piece of safety glass. I raised the hammer and with all my strength I hit the glass with the hammer. When it did not shatter they were amazed and said things like, “That is fantastic, and I can do that and sell the safety glass!”
The company was so impressed with Jim’s sales they decided to have another contest. Another trip to the Bahamas for the salesman who sold the most safety glass in the next six months. They once again gave every salesman a piece of safety glass, flyers, fact sheets and now added a hammer.
Six months later they all gathered, and to everyone’s surprise Jim had outsold them all again. They asked, “Jim how did you outsell everyone again, after we gave everyone a hammer?” Jim told them, “I knew everyone was going to use the hammer in their demonstration, I knew I would no longer be making my sales presentation different than anyone else, so I had to take another approach. This time I put the hammer in the customer’s hand.”
As the company continued to find different ways to market/advertise their products and different ways to motivate their sales staff, their sales and profits grew, while their marketing/advertising budget shrank.
Invite Bob Janet to help your sales professionals and sales support staff increase sales and profits. Bob gives businesses and association members content loaded, fun-entertaining, audience involved seminars and keynotes that help them increase sales and profits. Bob’s selling and marketing skills and techniques are based on 40 plus years of “Been there, done that” front-line experiences. His long and proven track record of success combined with his unique speaking and teaching ability makes him uniquely qualified to present selling and marketing skills and techniques to business owners, sales professionals and sales support staff. Contact Bob at 704-882-6100, Bob@BobJanet.com or www.BobJanet.com.
