doing business with the new china: growing your sales

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Growing Your Sales

n the 1960s China, production of goods and products was controlled by the government where factories had a fixed quota and were paid at government rates. There was little incentives for these companies to become more efficient, enforce quality or to deliver products on time which caused Chinese consumers to have a high distrust of the quality of most products. Although the rapid modernization of China since the early 1980s is slowly changing this attitude, Chinese consumers still have a low quality view of products that are made in China. To compensate for this consumer distrust in quality Chinese businesses had to adjust the way they not only sold their products but also did post sales and service support. Some of the unique things to keep in mind: 1. Companies which are perceived to be large in size tend to be trusted more. This is not

because they can deliver better products but because they will be able to actually service their products if they fail or do not live up to their functionality when used. Being a smaller company typically is perceived as having little support which means there is higher risk for buying something and not being able to use it.

2. Once a product or service is purchased there is no refund policy for Chinese consumers unlike this standard policy which most companies in the Americas or Europe follow. The best that Chinese consumers can hope is an exchange of the product.

3. If something does fail or is not living up to its stated functionality, Chinese companies have perfected the art of post sales service. There is typically no questions asked by the company and a service person would be sent out to remedy the situation. This fast response to issues (sometimes within hours of a call) is a hallmark of customer service not readily seen in the Americas.

In all cases, selling to businesses follow the same basic set of rules of service and post-sales support. There are, though, some further techniques that can ensure your success with these new customers, grow your sales and get even more customers.

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The selling process does not end with a signed order or the delivery of the solution. When salespeople stay directly involved with customers during and after the delivery of the solution, they capture a sizable opportunity to get more business. In this Delivery phase, you implement the solution and measure the results. Your job here is to successfully transform the solutions value potential into tangible customer results which is called value release. A solution that does not deliver value as promised is no solution. The first part of this process is managing and executing a kickoff meeting that will set the expectations on what will be done as part of the implementation, what results will be achieved and when. Sales people start this work by confronting and communicating the implementation problems that their customers regularly encounter. They provide a way to report those problems and most importantly by reacting to reported problems in a cooperative manner by acting as a business partner. Measuring and reporting results is about turning back to the indicators of the problems that the customer is experiencing, measure them against the actual results and report our findings to the customer. If the expected outcomes have not been achieved, we prove our value by diagnosing the obstacles that are holding them back and designing next solutions Here are some potential discussion methods during the meeting: 1. “Out of curiosity have you ever experienced an install of this scale that went absolutely

perfectly? And neither have we. Both of us begin with an expectation that all will go well and both of us know some likely challenges we will face along the way. We have found it helpful to talk through some of those potential challenges in advance. Perhaps we can prevent them. Having talked about what to do in advance will help us move through them faster and easier if they do occur. Would that be a useful conversation to have?”

2. Let clients talk about their challenges first. “So if that happens, what do we do? What would have to happen to make you comfortable with that?”

3. Then give our list: changes in scope, failure to meet commitments in time, missed deadlines etc.

Kick Off Meetings


ustomer retention comes from falling in love with your customer problems not your technology or solution. Losing a customer is intolerable when it is due to lack of caring, giving poor customer service or losing touch with customers.

Customer experience is the key to retention. It is the sum total of all contact points, interactions,

transactions and a company encounters between a customer and a company and its various products. How customers build their yardstick of their experience with you is through the little snippets of experience that they have with your customer service people. The experience is what the customer says it is. In most cases, the customer wants to be part of the experience and wants a human touch.

If you want a good customer experience it helps to have talented, empowered and engaged

employees to represent the brand, and serve as the face, heart and soul of the company behind the brand. A customer feels great customer service through

-being appreciated or acknowledged -being made to feel special or important through ongoing dialogue -being rewarded or not being taken advantage of -developing a sense of belonging

Here are some ways to measure turning customers into advocates or promoters: 1. How likely are you to recommend us to a friend on a scale of 1 to 10? 2. What words would you describe a great experience? 3. Have you referred a family member or friend?

If the customer does not leave a review or less than a 5 rating, then they are most likely to NOT come back. If they rated us other than a 4 or 5 what could we do to improve?

Retaining Your Customer

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ustomer referrals is a key part of any sales process and especially takes relevance when you have proven and shown the results of your solution. But , in fact, asking for referrals to other people and potential customers should be an ongoing part of your conversations from the initial phases of customer discovery to the final stages of solution delivery. Here are some tips that will help you structure these conversations:

• Customer Discovery Phase

1. Hello, I know that as an engineer you dont have anything to do with buying Y. However we are launching a new product in your industry and I am trying to get the reaction of some qualified engineers. I wonder if I can come to see you for a few minutes to explain our new product and to ask you some questions about how an engineer would judge some of its features. Do you know anybody experiencing problems in these areas? Would you introduce me to them? You have agreed this is a useful product, which departments in your company could benefit from it?

2. Based on what you are currently doing it seems that our product is not a good fit for you. While there may be nothing I can provide that would make a measurable difference in comparison to what you are doing now…maybe there is another way we can work together. In your line of work…I am sure you run across other people who have shared similar challenges that you had and might be looking for a better solution. If you know someone who is always looking out for ways to do things better and who you feel would benefit from our product…would you be comfortable referring them to me? Then may I ask who you know would be a good candidate for our product?

• Delivery of Solution Phase 1. The call asking for a referral should be made with the same, if not more, care and attention

as when first calling the customer. Make it easy for the referral person to take action and the key is making 'no' an ok answer.

1. I am calling to ask for a possible favor. I have been researching Person X and I have reason to believe what we do might be of interest to them. I am looking for a meeting with X. I think you might know her or know someone who does. Does her name ring a bell? I am not at all assuming you want to give a referral or that you should. I was hoping I could just give u a quick overview of what I had in mind and you could decide what you would like to do. I would not want to do anything that you were not completely comfortable with. Do you have a few minutes to hear me out?

Getting Customer Referrals

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• Delivery of Solution Phase • Mrs. Customer, may I take a moment to share with you how I build my

business. What we enjoy most is serving my customers and exceeding your expectations. In order for me to spend more time with my customers and less time marketing or prospecting for new business I really need the help of my satisfied customers. Please understand I am not asking for any referrals from you now since we just started to work together. However in a couple of months when you are clearly realizing the benefits of my services and even more value would you be comfortable sharing the results you have experienced with others and introduce me to people who might benefit from my services. That sounds great. thanks in advance for this consideration. just to know what it will take to make you a raving fan…what can I do to make you comfortable enough to actually want to refer to business to me?


he customers that you have delivered value to are now some of your best people to turn to in order to make your product or services even better. This can happen days or weeks after the sale but the key is to keep in continual contact with the customer to keep in touch with their problems and even uncover new opportunities. Here are some tips around how to structure these conversations: 1. Feature Improvements

1. Non Negotiables: What attributes do you consider every competitor should offer and that you like?

2. Differentiators: Customer likes and differentiates your offering from competitors. What do you say we do better than anyone else? What do we currently and potentially offer that you would be prepared to pay a premium for?

3. Exciters: If we could create one feature today that would allow you to do things 10 times better, what would it be?

4. Tolerables What attribute are you willing to put up with it even though you don’t like it? If we could eliminate “X” attribute then would you buy a lot more or more often?

5. Dissatisfier: these are negative features that differentiate you from competition. Overall which attributes do you most dislike? Which attributes would you liked added to the product?

6. Enragers: an attribute that inspires negative feelings. Have you ever been proactively critical of a feature to the point you would write a complaint letter?

7. So Whats: What are the 3 features you use the least or not-at-all from the product? 2. Find out where your company fits in the market

1. Share of Market: How much market share do you think the largest provider of this solutions has?

2. Share of Mind: Name the first company that comes to mind in this industry? 3. Share of Heart: Name the company which you would prefer to buy the product?

3. Value delivery questions 1. What are we doing good? What are we not doing so good? Wow can we help you

better? 2. What do u think went especially well? Is there anything we could have done

differently? Is there anyone else in the organization who is experiencing similar symptoms to what you had?

3. Tell me a story about a time that the product let you down? What hasn’t changed in a long time? What might make a better or different experience? Is the experience of X…ordinary or extraordinary?

Improving Through Customer Feedback

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1. Breaking down the customer experience 1. Who

1. Who is with the customer when they are using the product? 2. Who are non-users? What is the behavior of these non-users? What

would attract the non-users? 2. What

1. While customers are using the offering, what else are they doing? Identify all major activities the customer is doing while using the offering.

3. When 1. When do customers use the product? 2. If we could arrange it, what other times might they use it?

4. Where 1. Where are our customers using the product? Where else might they

use it? 5. How

1. How do early customers use the product? How do late adopters start using it?

2. How do they make tradeoffs between using this product and deploying some other solution?

3. How do customers know when to start and stop using the product?


t some point during your relationship with your customer, they are inevitably going to have problems that your company cannot solve. At this point, there is an opportunity to augment what you are currently selling by expanding the pie and looking for partners to augment your services to solve problems for the customer.

Here are some marketing and messaging frameworks that will better position your company to leverage this new and emerging ecosystem of partnerships. Framework #1:

In the 21rst century value will emerge from distributed relationships among people. This next industrial revolution blends internet technology with renewable energy, smart grid and awareness based social technologies to give rise to a human centric technology and is organized around empowering individual and collective human experience. This means shifting the locus of technology invention from optimizing productivity to companies shaping a creative human process that leads to changing the experience that people have with the system, with one another and with themselves. The fundamental criteria for investment in technology could be: does the use of a specific technology improve or stifle creativity? Does the technology turn users into passive recipients of content or are we empowering users of technology to co create their own content and share it. This is the Society 4.0 economies.

Framework #2: • Generation 1.0 marketing : this was about creating brand and one way messaging. The production

economy in the early 1900s allowed large organizations to deliver a standard product. Before a person could understand who made the product and trust it…but now it created a whole new set of problems about how to get a person to discover and trust it which is where Generation 1.0 marketing became popular

• Generation 2.0 marketing : this was about using data to make better marketing decisions and have metrics to get a return. This type of marketing dominated from the mid 1970s to 2005.

• Generation 3.0 marketing: People will not choose a product but ally with an ecosystem that shares with their sense of purpose and have an enobling character. It is about integrating an ecosystem of experiences in which people can design products and can make connections across different manufacturers and other people. The person is building the product by cobbler together the pieces.

Partnerships for the Future

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Framework #2 (continued) • In Generation 3.0, power shifts from the brand to the consumer. Big data is about gluing

products together to make them instantly personalized. It makes it sticky because what I am working on connects me to millions of people. What will drive successful 3.0 companies are

• 2 way transparency with your data and understanding where that data is being used so you can extract economic value

• Purpose centricity: since the customer is doing the work, designing, distributing the product and paying into the relationship with data the customer gets in return is deep purpose from the company. It is a thing but it is for something.

• Contextual control: increasingly the purpose of company is not to make the thing but to create contexts and ecosystems that allow the customer to make the thing and pour in the data and interests to create products, services and experiences that you would be willing to pay for and ascribe value to. Change from I make it you buy it...to you make it I help you buy it.

• The customer wants to experience the product and the brand even before you buy the product.

• These are organizations that are connecting business to people…people to people…people to society. And creating shared value for all...there is economic value for the firm but there is deep personal and social value for the customer

• In Generation 4.0 the definition of the brand becomes totally personal. We are going to have a brand of 7 billion brands…where each person is the brand. The role of the company is to build the infrastructure because if we each become the brand someone has to pay for that infrastructure. The notion of b2b and b2c will no longer be relevant . Technology will be used the same in both contexts…the decisions are going to be made person to person and through networks.

Framework #3 Brands, partnerships and marketing has had 5 stages: • Wave 1: 1875 to 1920. Brands guaranteed quality and consistency through a label or

logo which originated from mass production issues. In 1906 were the first FDA rules that prohibited mislabeling of food, drink etc.

• Wave 2: 1920 to 1966. Brands become anthromorphized to differentiate between all the me-too products. Character endorsed brands and became the first consumer relationship and storytelling. the associations you had with the product are the associations you have with the character. When you have eyes directly engaged in a picture at you…there is alot more of a chance that people will notice your product

• Wave 3: 1965 to 1985. Brands become expressive of cultural values or self expressive. If I am using a brand then I am making a statement of who I want you to think I am. Brands could provide status.

• Wave 4: 1985 to 2005. Brands as an experience…Apple, Starbucks, Disney etc. You feel an emotional transformation just by being engaged with that brand. it becomes a movement...they created visceral distinctions to evoke immediate responses in people

• Wave 5: 2005 to present. Brands as connectors. It is not about marketing and advertising…that is about execution tools. Branding is now a human centered behavior created to construct meaning and belonging. That connection makes you feel better about yourself. People find a personal connection with someone whom they share a common bond...they think they are in love with the effect that they can have with connecting with other people. People want connection. It is shown that babies will prefer connection with their mother over food. More people are living alone..1 in 2 people now and 1 in 10 people 30 years ago. So brands need to provide that connection today but with all the social comparisons...people are getting fatigued and now there is an opportunity for brands to just communicate that you are ok just the way you are.


Here are many reasons that customers might not buy your product or service when you first approach them and more than likely has nothing to do with the value of your product or yourself. It could be a combination of timing, priorities or time available. The key to getting more sales is to continue the conversation with these customers that have shown initial interest is by gently reminding them that they are interested in what you have. At some point, once these low cost tactics do not bear fruit from any given customer then the customer is put on the inactive list.

1. Email sequence to non-buyers. There are a series of 12 emails that are sent to move the non-customer to a customer.

1. Email #1: The goal with this email is to show the results that you have achieved with your product or service so that they can understand the promised insights.

2. The Story Series Emails, Email #2,#3 and #4: These are casual story based reminders that will pull customers back to your core value and problem that you solve. This might be a specially constructed story broken into 3 pieces over 3 days or it can be 3 individual stories. One way to create these stories is to choose your three strongest points from your sales message and use one each day. The story should be anecdotal and aiming to come across like a friend.

3. The Sales Acceleration Emails: Here we are going to modify our offer to lower the barrier to the sale and create urgency to buy in the process. We are not offering discounts but we just want to lower the threshold of commitment. This could mean trials, different payment options so that we can get the best possible deal without devaluing the product. The emails are also targeted at different types of buyer mindsets

1. Email #5: The Urgency email is to remind them of the urgency and time limitations inherent in our offer. This email is designed to appeal to your impulse buyer type. In their day-to-day lives, people with this mindset often feel rushed or overloaded, and presenting our offer this way gets their attention and makes purchasing feel like a relief. They enjoy “jumping” on opportunities like this and some will even thank you for bringing the opportunity to their attention

2. Email #6: The FAQ email is designed to appeal to the more analytical, logical mindset. People who think this way usually resist any offers that have an element of uncertainty or any unanswered questions. The trick is that, a lot of times, they don’t mentally form these questions in order to ask them. So even though they want to buy, they just leave a big question mark over your offer and put it off. So in this email, we focus on filling in all the details we can about the buying process, but present them in a question/answer format. “What do I get in the offer?” “How much does this special offer cost vs. the regular price?” “What bonuses are included?” “What kind of guarantee is there?” Providing these details will eliminate the unanswered questions in your logical buyer’s mind and will make them feel comfortable and confident in finally taking you up on your offer.

Customers that Don’t Buy

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1. Email #7, The Testimonial Email: The next email features personal stories from previous customers and clients who have used your products and services. This “Testimonial” email is meant to appeal to the people who respond best to stories from other people. Whereas your logical buyers would like to hear about the technical specs of a car they want to buy, these folks want to hear stories about how fun it is to drive through the countryside with the top down. And so we use your previous customers as a shortcut to give these prospects stories about using your products and getting results. This will help them imagine using the product themselves, and getting the same kind of results. All they need is a little fuel for their imagination, and there is no better fuel than the real-life experiences of others who already love your products and are happy to buy from you

2. Email #8, The Last Day Email: The final email is meant to give a last little push for the procrastinator mindset. Some people are wired to wait until the last possible minute no matter what. The trick is that people who think this way frequently miss out on things because they wait too long. So by sending them a reminder that your special offer is now expiring and it’s their last chance, you’re doing them a favor. They are happy because they already wanted your offer, but their mindset makes them put it off and they never make the time to follow up. But because you reminded them, they won’t miss out like they normally do

1. Feedback Loop Series Emails: This last series of emails we send to our non-buyers is called the Feedback Loop series because it presents them the opportunity to interact with us. With the information we get from those interactions, we will do two things: get one more chance to close the sale on this offer by tweaking our messages, and get in a position to make them our next offer, which we will let them suggest.

1. Email #9, Do you Hate Me Survey Email?: Unlike the previous emails in this non-buyer sequence, this email isn’t about attempting to close the sale. This email actually drives the reader to fill out another survey. This is a one question, open-ended survey to determine why people didn’t buy. This somewhat shocking email/survey gets its name because we jokingly ask if the reader hates us. Because we gave them our best product at our best possible deal, but they simply didn’t buy. We want to find out why. The key to this email is to ask specific but leading questions to let them know what kind of answers will be most useful to you. The email might read like this: Did we not do a good job of explaining something? Did we not do a good job of touching on a specific hot point that matters to you? What’s the single biggest reason why you’ve decided not to work with me? Was it something I said, or didn’t say, OR do you just hate me? Please click on the link below and tell me “What was the #1 reason why you decided not to try XYZ product / service?. People feel an urge to respond because they are uncomfortable having a negative emotion like hatred attributed to them. In fact, this somewhat perhaps unexpectedly shocking approach, spurs non-buyers to leave detailed, thoughtful answers because they want you to know that they don’t hate you at all.

Learn more about

how Impact10x can help your business.

We connect innovative technologies between the USA and China. By leveraging proven innovations and business models and localizing those

insights through re-engineering of the product, marketing or sales channels we provide a path to accelerate sales of your product or service

Contact us Now www.impact10x.com Harsh Wanigaratne

[email protected]

http://www.impact10x.com/

doing business with the new china: growing your sales

Small Business & Entrepreneurship