Is It Time To Go Back to Business Basics?

By Peter LoCascio, Trade Show Consultants www.tradeshowconsultants.com

“There is only one boss. The customer! And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”— Sam Walton, Wal-Mart

Today’s challenging global economy is forcing many corporate marketing and sales professionals to go back to basics in an effort to re-evaluate how they conduct their daily business while searching for areas demanding improvement. Many are finding that the strategies employed during the past decades of active Internet inspired tactics are no longer as effective in generating sales and retaining customers.

In many ways the past economic expansion has created a somewhat passive, order-taking sales culture compared to yesteryear, when marketing and sales functions were pro-active, personal, and driven by the desire to outperform the competition. The goal was always to keep existing customers happy and to win every sale from any new business opportunity.

Some might also argue that yesterday’s marketing and sales tactics are ancient history and will not apply in today’s business because of all the clever electronic technologies that support it. On the contrary I say, because in the final analysis, a product or service is sold when its value exceeds its cost. And with the exception of commodity products, any product or service that is least bit complicated will still need to be presented and sold by a professional sales team one customer at a time.

As long as a product is competitive when compared to all others in the marketplace, its value should be successfully supported by presenting the benefits it delivers. Those benefits are in turn supported by its unique features, all of which should be supported by a corporate culture based on personal service.

In the marketing mix, exhibiting at targeted trade shows present opportunities to re-calibrate other forms of market stimulation, marketing strategies and selling tactics by delivering real prospects and customers who are often amenable to sharing their opinions, ideas, and what value looks like in their eyes and minds.

There are many old truths that will be important to marketing and sales success in this new emerging economy. Most have to deal with acquiring an acute focus on effectively stimulating targeted prospects, quickly and efficiently responding to their questions and concerns, and striving for excellence in closing sales and providing outstanding service before, during, and long after the sale is made.

Each of us has experienced in our daily consumer lives many levels of service. For the most part we all would rather do business with people and businesses we like, respect, and who in turn like and respect us by delivering what they sell and then standing behind it.

The order-taking culture of the last few decades of business has created an environment where the answers to the following questions can no longer sustain a successful business of tomorrow:

1. When was the last time you bought something from someone you didn’t like?
2. Have you ever gone back to do business with a company or sales person that failed to deliver what was promised?
3. How many times have you terminated a phone call after waiting on hold too long?
4. How often have you been disappointed by poor, lackadaisical service?
5. When was the last time you got to talk to a live telephone receptionist instead of a recording?
6. How many times have you terminated a telephone call because you didn’t know or remember the extension of the person you wanted to talk with?
7. When the last time the cable/satellite installer or service person came to your home or business on time?
8. How often have you been impressed by a sales or service person’s positive and helpful attitude?
9. How often have you not understood the voice of an outsourced telephone technical support representative?
10. When was the last time you were contacted to see if you were satisfied after a purchase?

Without going any farther, it’s easy to see why some businesses are laying off their workforce, going bankrupt, or closing their doors without notice. It isn’t rocket science to realize that something has gone awry. Common sense tells us that treating others the same way we want to be respected and treated has merit and will be required to succeed in the future.

In many cases technology in this economy has turned the tables on our ability to conduct business on a professional, person-to-person level. While emails, text messages, web sites, the Internet, faxes, cell phones, laptops, and pagers, etc. are cool and indeed might be sophisticated technologies, they all tend to take us farther away from face-to-face encounters with prospects and customers instead of bringing us closer together.

The new economic paradigm will demand that businesses go back to the time-honored basics of focused customer services. Those include establishing personal and professional connections with prospects and customers, and delivering more value from the entire corporation than expected. Adjusting to the many new challenges facing today’s business environment starts with top management placing prospects’ and customers’ needs, wants, and demands at the top of their to- do list.

The tremendous dynamics created on the trade show floor exist because competition in most cases is only a few feet away, the show lasts only a few days, and because prospects are calling on sales, technical support, and executives. Since you seldom get a second chance to make a good first impression, and an effectively executed trade show can dramatically shorten sales cycles and increase selling effectiveness like no other discipline in today’s marketing mix.

Under the roof of a convention center, a corporation sets up a trade show exhibit complete with graphics, lights, carpet, signage, products, and staff. Whether realizing it or not, the exhibitor is presenting a complete image of that organization and its culture from the first day it was incorporated to the moment a prospect observes the booth.

Today’s economy should be more than enough to stimulate every top management team to use more creative customer service solutions and get back to the basics of common-sense business wisdom — wisdom that succeeded in the past and created countless thriving industries supported by satisfied customers.

I firmly believe, that if I only had one dollar to invest in announcing a new competitive product, it would be by exhibiting at a targeted trade show where in three days we would learn volumes by simply asking prospects to BUY our product. Their candid answers would be the foundation on which you would then build real factual marketing and sales programs.

Over the years, various forms of research have failed to assess a prospective customer’s authentic appreciation for a product or service offering leading many marketing and sales organization astray. Asking a prospect to purchase a product and not just his/her opinion cuts to the heart of the matter and gives the research meaning. Will you buy this product?

The trade show floor is the only environment where you can ask these important questions hundreds of time a day to uncover reasons why a prospect feels compelled to either consider buying or not to buying your product or services offered. But you have to be willing to ask for the order before getting meaningful data that will direct your future marketing and sales strategies and tactics.

Peter LoCascio

Trade Show Consultants

www.tradeshowconsultants.com