Blog Author Mellissah Smith - Page 96

What keeps you awake at night?

Some say a sales manager never sleeps. Constant questions seem to plague their minds - will I make that budget? How will I close this sale? Have I got the right team for the right job?

What if there was a way to help answer these questions? Some miracle program whereby sales managers no longer have to stress about the duties and targets of their entire sales team, but just focus on their own task at hand. A program which can change those plaguing questions from “Will I make that budget?” to “we will make that budget”

I received an email from the Sales Coach Academy, who provides a powerful and proven sales coaching program for sales managers. I was asked what are my biggest sales frustrations? What traits my ideal sales team would posses? And pretty much what keeps me awake at night?

The aim of the short survey is obviously to work out the needs of Sales Managers, what frustrates them and what concerns them most about their sales team. It provides questions that more or less allow you to vent your sales frustrations, so that the Sales Coach Academy can base their coaching programs around the areas of high interest to sales managers.

I strongly suggest you take the survey if you have been involved in the sales industry throughout your career – which most of us have! Perhaps we can finally get some answers to those questions that keep us awake at night!

Alison Lovatt, Marketing Eye.

One of the things that no-one tells you when you are thinking about expanding your business is just how busy you will be.

It is remarkable how much you can fit into a day, let alone a week.

I am travelling to the US on 22nd March to meet with some people over there; potential investors, key influencers, government and industry leaders. Organising my schedule and fitting everything in is near impossible. 10 days just isn't enough. But for this trip, it will have to do!

About 10 years ago, I was in New York for a holiday and by chance, I happened to be in town when there was an entrepreneurs event with Jack Welch.

I sat down with my friends who were also in business and watched Jack Welch talk about his story of how he changed GE and his philosophies on business.

Marketing Eye received a ranking last week on Twitter and it had me thinking...

A chance meeting today of a singer/songwriter from Yeppoon in Queensland, reminded me of how much the past can influence the future.

While we may learn history throughout our education, as an adult, unless you are particularly interested in historical events and people, knowledge on the past can be somewhat limited.

Today, I was asked to market something that has so much historical significance in Queensland, but is yet unknown by most of Australia. It is perhaps some of the best poetry that I have ever read. Up there, in some ways, with Keats, Shakespeare or Blake.

If you haven't read it already, pick up a copy of Pen Blossoms by Mary Rattenbury, published in 1936. It will literally take you to another place.

Like Nostradamus who predicted the French Revolution, Adolf Hitlers ruling and the death of Princess Diana, Mary Rattenbury predicted an invasion of Australia by the Japanese.

Sometimes the best marketing for the future, is to take a look at the past. Look at past authors, poets, artists and gain insight into their work. You never know what piece of brilliance you may pick up and how relevant it is to today's market.

With the excitement mounting in Melbourne for tonights big game with the RaboDirect Melbourne Rebels playing the NSW Waratahs at AAMI Stadium in the FxPro Super Rugby, everyone is waiting with anticipation to see how the 2012 season starts in what is the second game of the competition.

Rugby is the sport of gentlemen. I remember years ago going up to Brisbane to watch Australia play Italy at Ballymore Stadium. Everyone was well dressed, drinking champagne and premium beers, chatting away. The stadium was full of professionals and die hard rugby fans. The atmosphere was exciting and full of life.

Of course the Kiwi's vs the Aussie's is the biggest match in the game particularly if you are from either of these countries.

Sponsorship is a hard one to measure. I know Qantas do an amazing job with their sponsorship of the Formula One in Melbourne each year. You would have to be sleeping under a rock if you didn't associate Qantas with Formula One in Australia. Their marketing team does a phenomenal job of maximising their sponsorships.

Day 1: loads of emailing.

In the past week, we have been organising media interviews for a financial services firm. Our inhouse PR expert is very talented and well-connected, and has organised more than 13 interviews for an international money markets expert. The thing is, this was done, all without using their media kit. Why? Because it is a bit out of date and doesn't represent the company and how forward thinking the company really is.

This got me thinking. What should go in a press kit (or media kit) in 2012?

Here are some things you should be considering;

Your brand is alive in places you never knew existed.

With the introduction of the Internet and in particular social media, your brand is coming up in places that sometimes you would prefer for it not to be.

That is the nature of today's marketing environment.

If I was to pick 3 things that you need to do as a small business to market your business today, I would say;

1.  Make sure you have your best foot forward online: That means that at every touch point from the time someone opens the screen onto your website through to every single click through - that the same consistent experience with your brand occurs. If they click through to your twitter account, they STILL know it is your brand from the language you use to the visual aspects of your Twitter account. If you write a blog, showcase your brands personality in your writing and with pictures. Make sure that wherever your brand is online, that you are proud of how it is represented.

2. Don't discount the power of PR: Too many companies think they are too small to get a story in the newspaper or sometimes big companies just leave it off their marketing strategy. The power of a good story may mean that your company is elevated above your competitors, positioned as an industry leader and you as a commentator who knows their stuff. PR is not hard to do - all you have to do is read blogs like Marketing Eye's and the thousands of others that give instructions on just how to do it. Or alternatively, hire a PR consultant.

3.  Put customers and service first: Today I said no to working with a company that was ready to engage Marketing Eye. They seemed like a great bunch of guys, but for some reason they had a terrible telephone system (they need to speak to someone like Next Telecom to fix it); the phone rings out, hangs up when it shouldn't and constantly hits voice mail. If we were not putting customers first, we would take their money.  But no matter how much marketing we do for them, we cannot help them without them realising that it is a problem if you don't pick up the telephone or if you ring 3 times and the systems automatically hangs up on you. You have to answer the telephone.

Service needs to be first too. That means being responsive to clients' needs, giving them over and above what they expect and genuinely realising that without them, you don't have a business. If, heaven forbid, your service falls down on any given day, then you need to realise it, take responsibility and do whatever it takes to make it up to your clients. They deserve nothing but your best.

I have tossed and turned throughout the night deciding how much I should share on what I am doing with my business on this blog.

There are many reasons for this; namely, is that I don't want to give too much away in case, heaven forbid, someone copies.

But I have this blog, which many wonderful people read, and it's very real. It tells it how it is. If you read the blog daily, you would pretty much know who I am, what I think about business and be getting a fair share of stories that may or may not relate to your own small business experiences.

Last week, I talked on how to get your business to the next level. Well, I am there. I have had enough holidays, and I am completely and utterly committed to taking my business to the next level. My enthusiasm for Marketing Eye and what it has to offer is contagious. I know this because every meeting I have of late, people make comment.

Marketing Eye is successful in Australia. I am proud of its accomplishments and what it provides the businesses we work with. We are innovative to a point, that many of our competitors copy our website word for word, our service offering and as much as they can - our spiel. But they are never going to be us as we will always be the innovator, the thought-leader and the risk taker.