sales-blog

Hiring high performing sales professionals

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:20:20 +0100

Most every sales manager has faced the challenge of sifting through a stack of resumes to find the sales pro that will take them to the next level. The stakes can be high, as a great sales contributor can grow the company and create jobs, while hiring the wrong person can stall or even kill a small company. Here are a few tips to help you hire winners, and avoid low performers.

Know your product

Before you can determine what attributes to look for in a sales person, you have to understand what they will be selling. Different products have different target customers. Understanding your product is the first step in understanding the customer.

Know your customer

Every customer is different, but for most products you can readily identify trends in the customer population. Matching your sales staff to the type of customer that they will sell to can be critical to their success and yours. For example, if your company sells feed to cattle ranchers, your sales staff will need to know how to interact with cattle ranchers… who can be a unique bunch, and have a language all their own. Many customer groups will have similar institutional vocabulary and/or customs that act as a barrier to entry for your sales staff if they are not equipped to handle them.

Know what has worked and failed before

This sounds simple, but surprisingly, I’ve seen many sales managers that hire the same profile over and over, even if prior hires have shown a trend of being sub-optimal performers. Take the time to understand how the most successful sellers in your industry (not just your company) sell. Look for evidence of demonstrated success in these areas.

Understand the candidate’s goals vs opportunities

Another issue that I see frequently is that of hiring people that want something that isn’t really realistic to expect in the position. For example, hiring only over-achievers that want to move up quickly into management. While this might provide sales performance in the short term, there will never be enough opportunities for promotion to satisfy a sales team constructed of individuals that all want rapid advancement. Every opening will result in one promotion, and multiple disgruntled, disappointed folks that were passed over. Matching the goals of the individuals with the likely opportunities within the organization should provide for less destructive competition and a higher likelihood of retention.

Be open minded

While I think it is critical to understand what has worked before, you might also consider that there are likely a variety of ways to successfully sell most any product. Sticking with tried and true methods only guarantees that your team will be well equipped to sell in the environment that existed in the past. Markets and products evolve and change, as do customers. Consider expanding your job descriptions to attract a diverse group of applicants. Building a team that all posses the key skills, but bring a range of experiences and backgrounds can lead to creative solutions and a more engaged team.

Simulate the sale

One of my favorite assessment tasks is the sales simulation, as it allows the interviewer a chance to experience the sales process employed by the candidates. In some cases, the skills required for interviewing for a job and selling a product can be very different. Candidates that soar in the interview process might crash and burn when put in the actual selling environment… or vice versa. Craft the simulation to mimic the desired sales process as closely as possible. If the role will be telephone based, then conduct the simulation as a telephone based sales call. If the role involves a face to face visit while walking the client’s manufacturing floor, then conduct the simulation while walking a client’s manufacturing floor. At the end of the simulation you should have a better feel for how the candidates naturally interact, what sales process they gravitate towards, and whether they are likely to be successful right away, or a long term development project.

Making your case for a higher price

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:47:20 +0100

As a sales professional, I had a painful conversation with a roofing contractor a few days ago. He came out, measured, actually nailed down a loose shingle or two, and gave very helpful advice on how I should proceed.

He knew that I already had an estimate in hand from a competitor, and gave me what appeared to be a fair, but not overly aggressive price. His price is 15% higher than the other guy.

No problem.

I sell a premium product and don’t mind paying more if I’m going to receive a benefit from the additional up-front cost.

When presented with the other quote, I expected some effort to either justify his price, or match the other price. Neither happened.

He seemed rattled when I started verifying exactly what he was proposing to do, so I showed him the description of work from the competing contractor and asked him to tell me what was different about his offering compared to the other guy.

His answer: “Nothing really. I do really good work though.”

Such a nice guy, and I appreciate his honest answer… but obviously, more of a roofer than a sales professional. When I present the pricing for my premium service, I do so with evidence to support the more costly tools and methods that we employ, and the superior results that we achieve. Without that evidence, I would not expect any intelligent prospect to pay our premium rates.

Back to the wayward roofer… Since he couldn’t differentiate his product and support his premium price, I’ll be hiring the other guy.

How do you support your price in the face of cheaper competition?

Google Wave as a Sales tool?

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:52:27 +0100

I recently signed up for Google Wave, thanks to a friend that offered me an invitation.

My first impression is that it looks like an awful lot like an email client, with a few extensions to allow collaboration. Based on conversations with a few friends, and what I’ve seen posted on Twitter, this is a pretty common first assessment.

However, a bit of reading in the Google Wave Help section reveals a couple of BIG differences. I’m not suggesting that any are good or bad, just different.

1. Anyone that has been invited to a wave can see what you type, as you type it. I’m glad I read this, as I tend to type first, then return to edit emails pretty heavily before I send them. I’ll have to be more careful as I type blips.

2. Anyone in a wave can play back all changes that were made to a wave. Again, be careful what you type! This isn’t an email where you can type a cruel message, then delete it before you hit send (please correct if I got this wrong). If I understand this correctly, even the edits that you make will be captured. On the plus side, if you are added to the wave late in a conversation, you can play it back to get up to speed.

3. Anyone in a wave can edit ANYONE else’s messages. Not sure how this will work. Could be collaboration, or tampering, depending on context and perspective. As noted previously, all changes are archives and easy to replay.

4. Image attachments are downsampled to reduce file size. That hi-res image that you thought you attached to a blip won’t be hi-res when the other participants see it.

5. Waves can be embedded. ie. You could embed a wave in a website instead of having a chatroom. This is on my list to explore further, as I can see some interesting potential uses that would increase interaction and information sharing with prospects.

6. The conversation is hosted, so you don’t have the old email problem of trying to track a conversation when some folks reply to all, some reply just to individuals, some go off topic. Those things can still happen, but they happen in one place where it should be easier to follow.

Have a look at http://completewaveguide.com/, which, oddly, is billed as a complete guide to wave.

I pretty quickly wondered how Google Wave might be used as a tool for selling. Two scenarios seem likely: collaboration among the sales team and/or conversations with prospects.

The internal team collaboration use is a pretty straight forward concept… or at least it appears to be at this point. It could be a good place to keep evolutionary documents like sales collateral, so that new versions are always available in the wave vs tracking versions in personal folders or file shares.

Conversations with prospects could become interesting as others are brought into the conversation, and the prospects become customers and are handed off to the team that will provide our service. A few potential pitfalls exist here, but I’ll explore those later.

I’ll check back in after I’ve had a chance to play with Google Wave and try some out some ideas.

How do you use, or envision using, Google Wave for selling?

Adversity during a sales call?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:14:41 +0100

Sales people love to recount stories of their amazing sales prowess.

My favorites involve the theme of uncovering true needs that were not on the prospect’s radar prior to the conversation. Anyone has a fair shot at providing a solution for a known problem. Solving a problem that is unknown to the prospect, but provides real value can be exponentially harder.

Harder still is finding a sales person willing to honestly acknowledge the times when they came up short.

Since I am of the opinion that keeping a stumble to myself prevents others from learning from it, I’ll share a recent experience of the less than flattering kind.

I met a gentleman at a conference and had a very brief discussion about his product. It was late on the final day of the conference and I suspect we both acknowledged feeling a bit of mental overload. We agreed to follow up in a week or two and see if the services that my company offers would be of benefit.

So far, so good.

The next week we exchanged an email or two and set up a time to meet in person. I spent some time getting to know his product and felt pretty good as I entered prospect’s office for our scheduled meeting.

Sadly, that feeling of ignorant bliss stayed with me for the next 25 minutes, or so, as I was given a tour of the facility and detailed overview of the prospect’s products and promotional methods. I likely missed the repeated and obvious clues that I was not meeting the prospect’s expectations because I was truly perplexed. Identifying a clear opportunity for the service that my firm provides to be of benefit to the prospect usually comes easily to me. In this case, I unwittingly found myself stalling as I tried desperately to work out a viable solution to present to the prospect. Not only was I struggling to define a value-added solution, I was also unable to build a case to disqualify this prospect.

Simply put, what this prospect needs is not a perfect match for our standard offerings, but it clearly overlaps with some of our core competencies and key strengths. It would not surprise me if the ideal solution does not currently exists in the market, as this prospect is dealing with cutting edge products and requires an innovative solution.

What brought me to my senses was a very direct, and incredibly appreciated, statement from the prospect that went something like this: “Either tell me about your company and what you can do for me, or this is going to be a very short meeting.”
I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that this is most sales people’s nightmare scenario. Overwhelmed, feeling underprepared, caught off guard by a blunt acknowledgement that failure is directly in your path.
My moment of extreme adversity had arrived.

I thanked the prospect, acknowledged that I was unable to provide the recommendation that I had hoped would become obvious to me as he revealed his business situation, and offered that we adjust the expectation for this meeting. Instead of the original goal of determining if my firm would be able to help promote the prospect’s product, the new goal would be for me to gather all the info needed for the leadership team at my firm to brainstorm potential solutions to the prospects innovative problems. Clearly, this is not what either of us had hoped for, but what options were there?

•    Conceded defeat and leave with my tail between my legs? An unattractive option since there may be an opportunity to help this prospect.

•    Shoehorn this prospect’s business into the standard offerings that my firm provides? I am certain that this would have resulted in an even quicker and unsatisfactory end to the conversation.

Curious how this story ends?
Me too!

I expect to work through the potential solutions with my firm’s leadership team soon, and go back to the prospect with either a proposal that is viable and will provide real value, or an acknowledgement that we are not well suited to help, accompanied by my sincere thanks for the opportunity.

What did I learn?
1)    It pays to be receptive to the cues and clues that prospects present, and ready to adjust my goals when presented with a puzzle that I can’t solve on the spot.
2)    Sometimes feedback that might sound harsh is the most valuable feedback one can receive.

What sales lessons have you learned the hard way?

Using the iPhone as a tool for selling, part 2

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:01:12 +0100

Since I wrote part 1 of this iPhone overdose article, I’ve been to two conferences that REALLY tested the iPhone. Here is how it did in each of the areas listed in part 1:

Was it up to the challenge of supporting all of my essential sales tasks while on the road?

1) Email:

What I predicted: Gmail = good, Outlook mail = short term OK, longer term fail.

What I experienced: Gmail worked like a champ. Outlook mail arrived on time, but I had no email history, as it is stored in the .pst file on my laptop, not on a server. Sadly, I predicted this one accurately. Apple has work to do to make email a non-hassle. Expecting outlook users to have no history might be OK for personal use, but not for business use. I can deal with it for a couple of days to get me through a conference, but no longer.

2) Skype:

What I predicted: fail.

What I experienced: Although I read somewhere that the restriction on VOIP over 3G had been lifted by Apple/AT&T, the Skype app still limits VOIP to wifi. Wifi at conferences is always notoriously unreliable, so the Skype app was useless to me. Good thing my call with Australia got rescheduled! Fail.

3) Presentation aid:

What I predicted: fail.

What I experienced: My first 3 attempts at opening my powerpoint deck on the iPhone were sub-optimal. Missing images, images oriented incorrectly, no animation. In short, not useable. Then I loaded the deck in google docs and found that it was 95% true to the original. The 5% that was missing were things I could live with. I actually ended up with a useable sales aid, although a very small one. Because of the small screen size, I never attempted to use this sales aid. Apple = fail, Google Docs = success.

4) Browser:

What I predicted: Ok, but fail on flash sites.

What I experienced: Unfortunately, it was OK for quickly looking up a company website to get an idea what they do before talking to their rep. The lack of flash isn’t a huge detriment with most corporate websites. However, NHL.com is heavily dependent on flash, which was a problem for me. I am at a complete loss that Apple hasn’t addressed this yet. Baffling. FAIL.

5) Twitter:

What I predicted: success via tweetdeck and hootsuite.

What I experienced: two conferences, one month apart, different result. Tweetdeck was great for the first conference. I set up a group of key folks to follow and a search for the conference’s hash tag. Cool… until my battery was going dead after about 3 hours. That was shocking. By the time the second conference arrived Twitter had introduced lists, and I was making a list for the conference. There aren’t any tools yet to manage lists, let along on the iPhone. I also switched to TwitBird, as TweetDeck only seemed to get search results when it was open. TwitBird would allow me to refresh and get all the tweets that went out while I had the app turned off. I also used hootsuite on my laptop before leaving for the conference to schedule a series of tweets. That kept me from having to tweet as much, and saved my battery a bit. I’ll call this a success, although the apps could be better.

6) Calendar:

What I predicted: success on much needed calendar function.

What I experienced: Neither conference thought ahead and provided the event schedule as an iCal (or similar) file. For the first one I did nothing and relied on a paper schedule. I really did not like that. For the second, I input the schedule in Outlook, which I sync with my google calendar … and I scheduled a tweet 5 minutes before each event. This way I would be able to share my efforts with all attendees that were following the event’s hash tag stream. I found that I never looked at my outlook calendar, did use the tweets to keep me on track, and pulled out the paper schedule a few times as well. The iPhone did it’s job. Success.

7) GPS:

What I predicted: great hardware rendered nearly useless by crippled apps. Fail.

What I experienced: Crippled as the apps are, they still were very useful at getting me where I needed to go, both driving and walking. I’m incredibly annoyed that the iphone Map app doesn’t work like a car GPS (real time ETA, TTS, onboard maps). The experience could have been SOOOOOO much better, but I was able to make do. Thought this would be a resounding FAIL, turned out to be an annoyance laced success.

8) CRM:

What I predicted: small screen success.

What I experienced: Never could get the data that I wanted when I wanted it. Gave up on PLD at the first conference and never looked back. Thanks for trying, PipeLineDeals, but it just didn’t cut it for me. Given the screen size, the iPhone did OK.

9) Phone:

What I predicted: seamless success.

What I experienced: Insufficient volume. Spotty coverage. Thanks Apple and AT&T for serving me the double whammy. They should call it the iToy, since the phone function appears to be an afterthought. Fail.

10) LinkedIn:

What I predicted: manageable.

What I experienced: I manage a group on LinkedIn called Affiliate Marketing for eMerchants (if you are an eMerchant, you should join!). But I didn’t do any group management while on the road. The LinkedIn app is useless, and the screen too small to use the tools via the browser. Fail.

Ok, what did I miss?

I had hoped to make the trips sans-laptop. For the first conference, I also had an offsite meeting scheduled with a client and had to take the laptop for a presentation. I never took the laptop out of the bag for the latest conference, but that is because I was able to go home at night and do my critical online tasks there. Had I been away from home I would have had to take the laptop along. Sad to report that the iPhone just isn’t up to replacing the laptop for conferences… at least not for me.

Jeff Cress: the Sales Guy
VisualCV
LinkedIn
Twitter

Using the iPhone as a tool for selling? Part 1

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:15 +0100

As I prepare to head to head to the Commission Junction University conference one of the trade show prep items on my list it to figure out how to use my snazzy new iPhone 3GS as a sales tool so I don’t have to lug my massive 17″ laptop with me. In many ways it is an amazing device, however I am not sure if it is up to the challenge of supporting all of my essential sales tasks while on the road.

Here are the ideas and results so far:

1) Email:

One of the tools I’m using to set up appointments at the conference and stay connected to the office and family back home is email. While my personal gmail is easy to get via the browser, my work Outlook email is on an exchange server that does not store messages. Since I don’t have a .pst file on my iPhone, I’m stuck with crippled email access to pick up new messages as they arrive, but no access to old messages. This is somewhat of a Fail, in my opinion, but I’ll have to deal with it.

2) Skype:

Another mixed bag here, I think. I use Skype to talk to a few overseas clients/prospects so that neither of us have to foot a huge phone bill. It would be less than ideal if I am unavailable to these folks while on the road. Yes, there is a Skype app on the iPhone that allows free Skype calls. However, the app restricts calls to WiFi. I have no idea what kind of WiFi access I can expect on this trip, so I’m leaning towards saying that the iPhone isn’t up to the task for this. Sad really, as the hardware is capable, but a business decision by AT&T/Apple artificially limited functionality.

3) Presentation aid:

Here is my idea… I meet a prospective new client at the trade show and want to use some of my electronic sales aids to help clarify a point or guide a discussion (I tend to be a fairly visual person). In person I would reach for my trusty powerpoint deck on the laptop, or if we are on the phone I might initiate a GoToMeeting so that the prospect can see what I’m looking at on my laptop. I have tried using my standard slide deck on the iPhone and found that most of the slides do not look right. So, it looks like if I want to have my deck and view it too, I’ll have to either lug the laptop, create paper copies (how archaic!), or rework the deck so that it displays properly on the iPhone. Another Fail for iPhone.

4) Browser:

I’m in the internet marketing business, so the thought of traveling without internet access is just crazy. The Safari browser does reasonably well at adapting larger screen content to the smaller screen. However, the one HUGE drawback is the lack of support for Flash. You would be surprised how many websites use flash to deliver rich content… and subsequently show NOTHING on the iPhone. Apple? Come on! This is insane. Since I’m only out of town for a couple of days, I may be able to get by without the laptop, but in general, this is another FAIL.

5) Twitter:

Yes, this Sales Guy is trying to build an online presence for interacting with clients and prospects via Twitter. And so far, not having great results. Every day I clear out piles of “someone that wants to sell me teeth whitening is now following me on twitter” messages, and automatic Direct Messages from people that I’m following. Pretty much all low/no value stuff. True as that may be, I can’t ignore it and risk missing a REAL message that is hidden amongst the static. Tweetdeck for iPhone is OK, and HooteSuite works fairly well via Safari. Given the limitations of the screen size on the iPhone, I think this is a success.

6) Calendar:

Out of my daily routine, in a different state, living from a suitcase, meeting new people, attending seminars, finding my way around… I’m getting disoriented just thinking about it. My trusty calendar has the potential to keep me on track. I’m loading my appointments in Outlook, which syncs to my google and iPhone calendars. I just tweeted a question to the event organizers asking if they have the full event schedule as a downloadable calendar. Wouldn’t that be SWEET! Otherwise I’ll be constantly looking at my paper calendar to see whats next. How 1990s? I think the iPhone succeeds here, just waiting on the event to give it the data.

7) GPS:

The flight arrives in LAX, then we drive to the conference, and crash at a different hotel at night. Quite a few opportunities to get lost. Between the iPhone gps, map app, and google’s directions I hope to be OK. I’ll give the iPhone hardware full props here, but again am annoyed that the software is intentionally crippled. And no, $100 for the tom tom app is highway robber, I’m not playing that game. No real turn by turn directions on the iPhone, although the hardware would support native turn by turn, with text to speech directions. Nice Apple. Thanks for shafting your customers by crippling the device, then creating a monopoly in the App store so that your chosen partner can have a monopoly. I want to call this a fail because I am ticket at Apple. However, I’ll still be able to use the gps to get where I’m going, just not with easy turn by turn guidance as we drive.

Eight) CRM: (thanks WordPress for making my look like a smiley face with sunglasses)

Props to Pipeline Deals for providing an iPhone app for our CRM software. I’ll be able to keep up with all of my prospect history and record new notes while I’m out. The small screen will make typing difficult, but given the physical restrictions of the device, this looks to be a success.

9) Phone:

Yep, I almost forgot that one. I’ll forward my office phone to my iPhone and should have fairly seemless phone coverage. What sales person can live without phone coverage, these days.

10) LinkedIn:

I manage a group on LinkedIn called Affiliate Marketing for eMerchants (if you are an eMerchant, you should join!). While I can be away from my profile for a couple of days, I really want to stay on top of anything that pops up in the group. the iPhone LinkedIn app is way too limited. Looks like I’m stuck with using LinkedIn via the browser and doing lots of zooming. Not a fail, not a blazing success. Hopefully manageable.

Ok, what did I miss?

Did I get something wrong? I am a rookie iPhone owner. Did I miss something that might make my life easier? Let me know.

As of this moment, I’m leaning towards taking my chances with just the iPhone and no laptop. I bet the conference has an internet kiosk set up somewhere if I absolutely have to get online and the iPhone won’t cut it.

Jeff Cress: the Sales Guy
VisualCV
LinkedIn
Twitter

Selling by giving away rich content?!

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:45:41 +0100

Posted September 13, 2009

As I learn more about selling Affiliate Marketing Management services, I am getting a real education in online marketing, and how to sell things online. Although I am “the Sales Guy”, my formal education is in Marketing. And besides, I was in Pharma for over a decade. Ethical Pharma doesn’t sell anything directly online. But I digress… I stumbled on a sales model that I had seen done MANY times before, with mixed results. Yola.com has adopted the “Freemium” model and is running wild with it. While most online “freemium” services are so crippled and restricted that they do little but cause frustration for those foolish enough to try them, Yola has turned this equation on it’s head and gives a staggering level of website building and blogging tools for free. As I’ve explored the site and set on building this blog two things have consistently jumped out at me:
1) What a slick interface and rich set of tools. Yola’s free service provides more than many paid services that I looked at.
2) While the value proposition on the free plan is impressive, Yola frequently offers premium upgrades, and most appear to be a good deal.

No, this isn’t an infomercial for Yola. I just think that their model makes a great example for discussion.

Feeling compelled by Yola’s implementation of the “freemium” model to make a purchase, I’ve had my eyes opened to the possibilities of the “freemium” model. I always thought that to sell something, one had to preserve as much value as possible, giving away as little as possible for free. What I’m seeing with the Yola model is just the opposite… give as much value as possible for free, compelling the consumer to invest time an energy in setting up and growing dependent on the service. Then offer premium options that really put the product’s value proposition over the top.

On the other end of the “lets give them something for free first, then charge them later” spectrum… Columbia House, circa the mid-80’s. I hate to date myself here, but I suspect that my aversion to “free” offers began with the old “get the first 14 albums for one cent, but you are committed to buy 9 at full club prices over the next 2 years” (or something like that). I ended up with more useless records that I never listened to out of that deal than I’d care to admit. And all right before CDs came out, so I got to buy the good ones again a few short years later.

What sales models have seen that you love or hate?

Jeff Cress: the Sales Guy
VisualCV
LinkedIn
Twitter

Yep, it’s trade show season

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:44:11 +0100

Posted September 10, 2009

I’m about to head off to the Commission Junction University 2009 conference in Santa Barbara. I know, I lead a rough life.

I posted a contribution from Nicole at RetailMinded.com on preparing for a trade show. I hope it helps you as much as it helped me.

This will be my first conference as an active vendor. I attended a few shows when I was in pharma, but I was there for meetings and had no responsibility for prospecting and selling at the event.

With a new role come new goals for the conference.

Kind of silly to go without a goal. I’ve got a couple:

1) Promote our client’s programs. This is the overt reason for the trip.

2) Prospect for new clients. Yep, there is a reason the boss is taking the Sales Guy with him.

3) Learn about the industry. Sure, I’ve been around sales for a long time, but I’m new to the Affiliate Marketing scene. this is my first chance to get a feel for the state of the industry and my company’s place in it.

4) Pick up an award! mgecom, inc. is a finalist for the CJYou 2009 Agency of the Year Award. We have very high hopes that we will return home with some new hardware and bragging rights.

I may not be able to influence the award (although I’ll try… ethically of course), but I will certainly work on behalf of our current customers and let that example impress the prospects that are there. The challenge will be in balancing my sales goal with my educational goal. At any rate. I am sure that this conference will be a huge success.

Check back late next week for a recap of what I learned, and see if I met my 4 goals.

Jeff Cress: the Sales Guy
VisualCV
LinkedIn
Twitter

Planning Your Trade Show Participation As A Vendor

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:42:43 +0100

You did your research, you paid your bill and you are on your way to attending a trade show. Making sure that you maximize your time at the trade show is critical to your success - or failure – as a trade show vendor. To help make sure your time is well spent, consider the below points.

1. Plan a budget that includes the cost of partipation, marketing, travel, lodging, entertainment, samples, display booth and promotional products. Any other expenses that are specific to your show attendance should be considered, as well.

2. Set goals that include returning your investment, meeting new business partners, gaining new accounts and reaching out to the press. Remember that trade shows offer more than just an opportunity to showcase your product but also offer the opportunity for you to meet new people, leverage business deals, gain insight on your competition, learn about new technologies for your business and so much more. Set goals that will cater to all of these areas that interest you.

3. Determine what display you will use that will highlight your product effectively while also staying within your budget. Make sure you give yourself enough time to get this display ordered / ready / and shipped accordingly. Remember to including lighting, fixtures, banners and all other displays needs in your planning.

4. Select giveaways that complement your company brand and product. Remember to always include your contact information on the giveaway so that retailers, the press and more will remember you when they use that giveaway. That said, try to select a giveaway they will actually use and not toss once they return to their hotel room or back home.

5. Make sure the people attending the show for your company are well informed of your business direction, communication standards and company objectives. They should be passionate about what you are selling and capable of communicating to anybody under pressure since trade shows can get busy and hectic.

6. Have your product information printed and ready to go. People may just want some information about your company without stopping for long to take a peak at your product. Have a well organized packet of information available that includes product details (cost, colors, sizing, order details, case packs, special details), company details and contact details. Including crisp, attention grabbing photos is essential, as well.

7. Be aware and aggressive of your marketing outreach. Each trade show offers different support and different marketing plans for their attending vendors. Make sure you follow up so that you meet any deadlines necessary for directory listings, floor plan placements and any other details that will impact your success from attending the show. In addition, don’t forget to market your own attendance with active clients (it doesn’t hurt to schedule appointments in advance if they are willing) as well as clients you would love to see while at the show. Be aggressive in your outreach through phone calls, mailers, email blasts, Twitter updates and more so that no one forgets you will be there.

Finally, relax. Easier said than done, however if you go into the show too tense and too nervous, this will be visible to potential clients. The more shows you do, the more experience and confidence you will gain. And as a vendor with big dreams, this is only the beginning!

Contributor Nicole Leinbach Reyhle is founder of Retail Minded, a boutique support firm and blog for independent retailers and wholesalers. Retail Minded offers project based support to help small businesses reach their retail dreams. You can follow Reyhle on Twitter at @RetailMinded and learn more about Retail Minded by visiting www.retailminded.com.

Please see my article on RetailMinded.com

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:41:16 +0100

http://retailminded.com/blog/2009/09/what-is-affliate-marketing/

What is Affiliate Marketing, and does it have a place in your marketing mix?