Robert Blaise

7 effective steps to selling competitively.

This is a very a common problem especially in these challenging economic times.  You need to learn how to sell competitively.  Here’s a simple plan , inspired by an audio book by the amazing Linda Richardson, which can get you started…
•    STEP #1: Do your competitive research. This should go without saying.  You need to know what your primary competition is offering… before you go on a sales call.   Get on their website.  Look at their messages.  Read their case studies.  Examine their online sales materials.  You should be at least as familiar with your competition as your customer is familiar with them.
•    STEP #2: Ask the customer about the competition. The time to do this is in the middle of the sales cycle, when you’re scoping out the customer problem and working on the crafting of the solution.  Ask which competitors have been calling, what they’ve been saying, and to whom they’ve been talking.   If the customer won’t tell you anything, you can assume that the competition probably has the inside track.
•    STEP #3: Get an assessment of your position. Ask the customer for a realistic appraisal of where you and your firm stand, vis-a-vis the competition.  The answer will help you determine how much effort will be required to displace the competitor.  It will also provide you with valuable perspective about how effective your sales effort has been so far.
•    STEP #4: Differentiate your offering. Based on the above, map the competitor’s offering, sales campaign, and overall position in the account against your own.  List areas where your competitor’s offering is weaker than yours when it comes to solving the customer’s problem.  List actions that you can take (like meeting with key people) that the competitor has missed.
•    STEP #5: Make a strategic decision. If the competition is so entrenched that you’ll probably not displace them, you have two choices: 1) decide to withdraw, or 2) decide to reposition your offering as compatible with competition’s offering. (Move on to FINAL STEP #6.)  If, however, your offering and the customers perception of your position are strong, you’ll want to sell toe-to-toe. (Jump to FINAL STEP #7.)
•   FINAL STEP #6: Partner with the competitor. If your offering and campaign is not strong enough to displace the competition, and you still want to be in the account, you need to find some area of the customer problem that the competitor’s offering doesn’t solve, and sell that portion of your solution to the customer.  This may entail meeting with your erstwhile competitor to craft a joint proposal.
•   FINAL STEP #7: De-rail the competitor. You know that your offering is superior in terms of being able to uniquely address the customer’s needs.  You also know who you need to convince in order to make sure that your offering is selected.  You job now is to execute that plan, and make sure that everyone on that list knows why your offering is the better choice.  Go for it!

Riding the “Social Networking” train to increase your sales.

The anonymous nature of the web acts as a tax on anyone who is an honest merchant. Sales are driven by perceived value, and many marketers spend 90%+ of their time & effort on front end marketing and optimizing their sales channels, while providing little to no substance to anyone who buys from them. By the time those customers get to people like us, they are already more distrusting, cynical, and jaded due to having been scammed - in many cases multiple times.

To someone new to a field, scams often look more legitimate than the real thing. Just ask anyone who has spent their share of the 100’s of millions of dollars on acai diet reverse billing fraud promoted through fake blogs advertised on the Google content network. Quality vs Perceived Quality

In terms of sales, the quality of the product or service is typically nowhere near as important as how much mindshare you have. That last sentence sorta reveals one of the major weaknesses of most non-salespeople. You can’t just focus on having the best product and think that will be enough. You have to use push marketing until you build enough momentum that it starts becoming a force of its own. And it needs to be periodically refreshed through advertising, public interaction, and viral marketing.

The myth of tax free internet sales

Frequently in my conversations with our clients the question of taxes for online purchase is brought up. The most common questions are; should I collect sales tax? do I collect based on the State?  Am I required to pay taxes for online sales?  I am not an internet sales tax expert however in my research what I discovered was that whether you need to collect sales tax depends on where both you and your customers are located. If your customers are in the same state as the physical location of your business, they owe sales tax on items they purchase from you.

For an excellent resource for information on state tax rates and rules, check The Sales Tax Clearinghouse, www.thestc.com. Click on the link to “state tax rates and DoR Web pages” to find a link to your state’s sales tax authority. You can also click on “LOOKUP RATES” to find the sales tax — state, county, local, etc. — for any address.

Tags: Guidelines

The order fulfillment plight

Okay so you finally made the leap of faith and invested in your online store. After a few weeks of tweaks on your Google Ad campaign you finally have your first sale, awesome. From this point forward How your business handles orders will have a major impact on your customer experience, from encouraging initial interest to prompting repeat business.  While several factors - price, quality of product or service, range of goods, stock availability - are vital to achieving sales in the first place, a responsive, fully automated order fulfillment procedure plays a key part in overall customer satisfaction.

Having a rock solid plan on how you will logistically manage orders will save you lots of headaches once you are up and running at full steam.  The key here is to understand the order flow and have a plan to address all possible issues that may arise during a sales transaction. Since at one point or another we are all consumers I like to start just by jotting down a few notes from good and bad personal experiences that I have had while shopping online. Next let’s evaluate your product is it a physical product like a phone or is it a digital product like software? How will your customers receive their product? Who will be responsible for the shipping charges? In either case there must be a process that is initiated when a purchase is made on your site. Remember not all customers will be happy with the quality of products purchased via the Internet and there will undoubtedly be a certain percentage of defective or damaged products, irrespective of the quality or type of product being sold.  You should have a plan on how to address an unhappy buyer as there is still an opportunity to salvage the relationship. I have found that a good well thought out FAQ can go a long way and actually help to increase sales.

So remember, invest some time in planning your overall customer experience and how their products will be delivered to them. This is a critical process in the entire transaction and should not be overlooked. Brows a few sites, purchase a few products, write down your likes and dislikes and soon you will be on your way to a better sales fulfillment process.

How can ecommerce consulting help me?

How can ecommerce consulting help me?

If you are new in the ecommerce arena, you surely have this question in mind.  Because we are here to assist you in finding the solution to your ecommerce problems and questions, we will try to answer the question “How can ecommerce consulting help me?”

Before we proceed, let us define what an ecommerce consultant or consulting services is.  We will then line up the services they offer and from the knowledge of ecommerce consulting and their services, we may come up with an understanding of how ecommerce consulting can help you.

What is an ecommerce consultant or consulting firm?

An ecommerce consultant is a professional who will provide you with advice after rigorously analyzing your ecommerce business and its position in the market.  Most ecommerce consulting firms can conduct the operation of an ecommerce business or have extensive experience in the operation of an ecommerce business.

This makes them qualified to give advice on how to establish, improve, and enhance your ecommerce website.  They offer variety of services that will ensure success in the World Wide Web will be within your reach.

Many businesses in the World Wide Web or ecommerce as people call it, enter this industry without much understanding of the processes.  If you have a product or service and it is doing well off-line, you may think that entering the ecommerce business is just the same as your offline business.

In many instances, you may prove it different in many aspects.  This is the reason why may business leave the World Wide Web, because of frustration that they are not able to make it good in the ecommerce arena.

Now, what are the services of an ecommerce consulting firm that will make sure those entrepreneurs in the ecommerce arena is going to be successful.

Helpful service of ecommerce consultants

Ecommerce Web Design – your storefront or ecommerce website needs to be designed professionally.  This is to ensure that consumers will trust you and your product.

Ecommerce Development – many things you need to consider not just your products and your services, SEO optimization, affiliate ship, opt-in mailings, catalogs and viral marketing.  These are just a few of the things you need in your website and the ecommerce consulting team will be ready to assist you.

Ecommerce Analytics – you need to know if your ecommerce business is doing well, including conversion rate and page abandonment analytics.  Knowing these things will help you address your websites shortcomings, if ever.

If you feel that the ecommerce world is not for you, may be it is not but if you are willing to work with ecommerce consultants, the consulting team will surely make you successful in a 24/7, all over the world business, that is ecommerce.

Tags: Consulting, Marketing