Marketing and Sales for Small Businesses

How to spend your available funds wisely

Bob Goedjen

Silicon Valley SCORE

www.svscore.org

Marketing & Sales Overview

This segment will explain how to create a

marketing plan and how selling is done

Elements of a Marketing Plan

Knowing your customers and their needs

Knowing your product’s or service’s value

Creating the marketing strategy

Creating the support tools

Budgeting and forecasting

Executing your sales plan

• Who Are your customers going to be?

• Where Are they located?

• When Do they decide to buy your product or service?

• Why Do they “need” your product or service?

• How Will you find them or they find you?

• What Is your product or service worth?

• Do they have the resources to pay for it?

Market Planning HIGH LEVEL VIEW

Marketing Plan

General description of your service or product

Customers; The specific ones you will focus on.

What issue/need do you solve/provide for them? (does it save time/money, make them happier?) Valuing your product/service. (price)

Competition; What alternatives do your customers have or who else can provide your solution to your customers?

How do you plan to reach them? (strategy)

A Marketing budget by month and sales forecast

www.smalltownmarketing.com, www.MarketResearch.com

Your Focus Customers Demographics

Location, occupation, gender, ethnicity, income, hobbies, recreation, age, etc.

How many potential focus customers/orders are there? This becomes your “Served Market”

Are they “End Users” ? (if not also describe the “End Users”)

How, where, and when do they look for your products or services?

Low hanging fruit! Your first targets!

What is your Message?

When You provide a service:

Customer needs assurance and you need credibility References (from satisfied clients) Licenses Certifications Detail description of what will be done

and the time required as well as support you require of client

Guarantees Liability Insurance

What is your Message?

When You provide a product:

Customer is concerned about: Performance Quality and reliability Delivery Price or cost of ownership Is price competitive? What if it doesn’t work? Options of leasing, renting, return

etc.

Can your customers understand it?

Pricing - How much do I charge?

How much value does the customer perceive?

Why do you need a price schedule?

What about payment terms? Up front charge?

Guarantees, policies on returns,

Discounts, Sales, introductory offers?

Lowering your price is always easier than raising!

Warning: PRICE may define VALUE in your customer’s mind

Tools to reach your target customers

Word of Mouth Shows, conventions, fairs, associations Mailers, brochures, business cards, Promotions, free samples Signage on your store or location! Public Relations, Articles mentioning your

company Alliances and referals Advertisements, listings Salesmen, distributors, retail outlets, catalogs,

web sites Repetition! Help everyone remember your name

or brand

Strategic PartnershipsMust be WIN-WIN

Joint Product Development & Offerings

Special Joint Promotions

Joint trade show participation

Web site links, combined customer databases

Cross Market Selling

Literature

International partnerships

Combined shipping or other support activities

Marketing Revenue and Expense Budgeting

Marketing is responsible for forecasting

sales! (by month)

Marketing is responsible for planning

expenses (by month)

A very critical part of your business

planning!

SALESManaging your program

Types of sales:

Business to Business selling

Business to Consumer selling

In store selling (Retail stores)

6 biggest mistakes made by sales persons

Preparation Is Key to Success

You have a marketing plan:

You have defined your potential customersTheir Location, demographics, etc.

You know your product or service features

You have a price schedule, terms and conditions

You know who is your competition and their weaknesses

Your employees are trained & customer oriented?

You are ready to unleash a sales program!

Can Anybody Be a Successful Sales Person?

The Short Answer is Certainly!

Preparation (know your product/service description)

Positive Attitude of Confidence and Belief in what you are offering

Persistence

Practice your product/service description

Do not take Loss of Sale Personally (learn from every sale and lost sale) listen to your customer

Prospect Mining

Sales work is inefficient at best.

One on one sales time often is 20% or less of a full time sales person’s time

Optimize your time by filtering through lists of possible customers:

Take prospective customer lists and prune them for best chances

Plan visits to minimize travel and wait time

Follow up by phone if possible

Retaining Customers, GettingThem to Refer You to Others

Give them a bit more than they expect

Set proper and accurate expectations

Give them something more

Always ask for feedback and learn from it and ask for referrals if appropriate.

Leave your business card and brochure with them. Thank them for their business.

Follow up in weeks with thank you card

Consider an regular newsletter

Making the SALE

Be friendly, nice and sincerely interested in your customer

Emphasize benefits of buying and owning

Minimize natural buyer’s reluctance to make purchase decision

Money back or return privileges

Product or Price may not be available later

Guarantees, warrantees, assurances

Financing or credit

B to B versus B to C selling

More long term repeat relationships B to B

Dollar value per sale usually much larger

Investment in sales process longer and requires

more time/cost investment

Buyer is usually more task orientated

Purchase is more planned and less impulsive

Decision sometimes made by more than one person

and sometimes by a team

In Store Selling

Remember the purpose of stores is to make it

convenient for customers to find, visit, see, learn and

buy merchandise or services free of hassle, noise,

delays, and frustration.

Therefore, customer service is number 1

Other attributes include: Clean, bright, well lighted

building, easy to find merchandise, cheerful

knowledgeable assistants, adequate inventories,

recognition of repeat and good customers

Or Buy it on the Internet

Stores are for Convenience

Six Biggest Sales Mistakes

1. Sales person appears too much in a hurry (not listening to customer)

Customer will become defensive if rushed

2. Sales person is late to appointment, does not return calls or appears distracted.

3. Sales person not familiar with customer’s application

4. Quotation is not responsive to customer’s RFQ.

Six Biggest Sales Mistakes(Continued)

5. Sales person disagrees with customer

Customer is always “right” even when wrong

Customer may not have communicated well enough or miss-understood sales person

May be testing if sales really is interested in the customer’s business

Consider cost of being right but not getting sale.

6. Sales person continues to sell after getting customer’s decision to buy

Secrets of Successful SellingGood Planning and Persistence

Questions are often the best selling tool

When visit does not result in an immediate sale

provide an excuse to see customer again

Ask the customer for names of others that might

need product or service

Follow up and continue to show interest in

customer as well as sale.

Silicon Valley SCORE

Who are we ?

A dvisory C ounc il

SC O R E C hapters390 chapters

D istrict D irectors

SC O R E Association O fficeC h ie f E xecu tive O ffice r

Board of D irectors1 6 D irec to rs

N ational SC O R E1 1 ,0 0 0 M em b ers

S B A R esou rce P artn er

Where are we ?

Workshops and Seminars at84 W. Santa Clara St., Suite 100

San Jose, CA 95113

408-288-8479

Counseling Sites atEntrepreneur Center

Many local Chambers of Commerce

Web Page: www.svscore.org

What can we do for you ?

One-on-One Counseling (unlimited number by appointment) no charge

Individual Counseling, normally two counselors for each client

E-mail Counseling, nationwide

Business Site Counseling

Business Assessment Program

What areas do we counsel?

Strategic & Tactical Business Planning

Marketing & Selling

Managing Programs

Reviewing Financial Data

Keeping Records

What areas do we counsel?

Hiring Personnel

Managing Staff & Volunteers

Serving Clients

Raising Funds

Writing and Obtaining Grants

We do not offer legal advice but may help you find such advice

What Training is available?

Startup/Existing Business Workshop

Nonprofit Workshop

Consulting & Contracts

Business Planning

Franchising

Taxes

10 Rules for Business

Cash Flow & Finances