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Lying To Your Customers, In Industrial Selling

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 11:56:00 +0000

Is lying to your customer justified in Industrial Selling? Why not? people think and reason. In the FMCG line, people do it all the time in product advertisements. So, why not in Industrial goods and Capital Equipment? Moreover, we are talking about a few white lies here and there. What is so wrong in it?

Sorry for doing it this way but lying in Industrial Selling is simply N-O-T A-C-C-E-P-T-A-B-L-E. The big deal here is that lying and sales have become so intertwined that customers simply add safety periods on to time periods being given to them. And, I talk here in case of both Internal Customers and External Customers. In a business organization, all the people to whom a person gives out information are its customers. For example, assembly gives out information to dispatch as to when an order will be ready which gives information to dispatch which gives information to Sales regarding a dispatch. Thus, dispatch is the customer of assembly and sales is the customer of dispatch, they are Internal Customers. Sales passes on the information to the External Customer. The information flow in many organizations is everything but the truth. Therefore, the salesperson's information is bound to be a distortion too. The difference is that all these negative points are filed in the customer's mind. When the next sales chance comes up, it becomes that much difficult for the salesperson to apply his organization's competitive edge as that has been worn away to some extent because of these distortions or lies along the product chain. There is one way in which this can be minimized and that is by progress posting online in the company's own servers or using cloud servers. Each and every point or station needs to have its on-line progress posting which should be accessible to the relevant departments. In any case, the sales person should not lie in such cases but tell the truth. He should not make any confirmations unless he is sure of what he is confirming.

This is the main area i.e. post sales before delivery periods that such things happen. One great thing about telling the truth is that in 90% cases, your relation with the customer will not be affected. In fact, the customer's dependability on you will go up when they realize that you can be relied upon to give an accurate picture of what is happening. The primary objective of a salesperson should be to build up relations with the customer, for it is only relationship selling that is going to mater in the coming future. If you do not know, what relationship selling is or unsure, you can take a look at what this blog has said about relationship selling in past posts. Just do not bring up that much abused word "next week" when the customer asks you when he can expect his delayed shipment. Just say " you do not know" and ask for time to give an accurate position to the much stressed customer.

Lying is mainly post-sale lying that we are talking about here. Pre-sale lying becomes redundant if you have good product knowledge. If you are not sure about something, tell the customer that you want to check it up and ask him for time. In many cases, you'll be surprised at how easily you get the time.

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Selling by Visualization

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Mon, 05 Sep 2016 22:01:00 +0000

Hi Friends,

Today, we’re going to discuss another selling tip or technique, whatever which we will call “Selling by Visualization”. Now, Selling by Visualizing is a way of trying to sell by certain imaginative exercises to be carried out, prior to the actual call. As usual, I am talking about Industrial Selling. It should work to some extent in other sales processes too, but don’t quote me as I have never tried it out other than in Industrial Selling.

Things to know

It’s a way of not letting nervousness rear its head, by increasing your confidence. Confidence is a property that any salesperson needs to possess as the more the confidence; the more are the chances of the sale.
Confidence without basic product knowledge is useless. It is wastage of resources and can misfire badly.
Selling by Vision is not something to be tried out at the very first sales call. A little experience should be acquired before you try it out.
Besides selling, the process is useful in other situations too where confidence helps such as in a job interview.

Methodology

Let us suppose that the sales person which is you has got a sales call lined up with a potential customer. First you should do your homework as to how your product can help the customer, try to gather information about the purchasing methods of the customer, role of the competition in the customer’s plant, etc.

Next step is to decide how to conduct the sales call. Here is where the experience is required. Let us assume that you will do a presentation, a simple power point slide presentation.

Now, the salesperson should close his eyes or if in public, keep them open but register nothing. The entire process from when he approaches the customer’s office to his departure at the conclusion of the call is visualized. Here, imaginative capabilities come in. Starting from the initial handshake, just visualize the call in your mind as if a movie is playing in front of you. Try to anticipate the questions which may come at different stages. There may be some which you cannot answer immediately. So, what answer will you give which does not give the customer wrong impressions. If done correctly, this will make you more prepared such as, say you are visualizing showing slides to a customer when there is a question about a connected matter, for which there is no slide in that particular presentation. You visualize yourself trying to find that slide and failing which says a great deal about how organized you are. Make a note to keep that slide ready. Go through the entire sales call and visualize a happy ending, say that the customer has asked you for a budgetary offer. Try to be realistic. The visualization can be in ordinary speed but what is vital is that you need to identify the turning points. Keep yourself ready for them. It is usually goof-ups in the turning points that prevents a sales presentation materialize into a sale.

This may sound foolish as you are only imagining how the customer will react, you have no idea what will happen. That is of course true, but think about it and you will find that the customer’s possible reaction though a variable can be defined by limits. The second point is that this exercise is not a memorization technique but is aimed at enhancing your confidence, and increasing your positive energy-that feel-good-feeling. The final point is that it hardly takes a couple of minutes. So, what have you got to lose?

Just When You Think That It's Over.......Marginal Benefits of the Shrunk Globe

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 18:59:00 +0000

I guess its finally time to confess
friends. Sometimes, I like reading academic papers or books. Why?
Well, I guess I like to know about subjects which have been in the news, so that I can boast online why they are in the news. Or, going the other way around, subjects which are interesting and which haven't been in the news. Here too I can tell you friends why they haven't been in the news!! LOL!

Nothing like that. I like to read academic papers as I want to know but there is again a division here. Mind you, I am a Mechanical Engineer but Math and Statistics now seem to be Ogres to me. Of course, this is apart from the Math I do now daily in my profession. Anything else (especially Calculus) and it seems that someone has lit dark candles in my heart. Yeowl!!

Before Thomas L. Friedman wrote about it, I guess I never thought about the effects of the flat, shrinking world. (I prefer the word shrunk more than flat as 'flat' takes away the very essence of dimensions). But I guess that's why Mr. Friedman is who he is, journalist and celebrity author earning a million dollars per annum. On the other side there is me who cannot even convince my readers to click on the 'damn' advertisements. They are not meant for aesthetic appeal, friends but are meant to be clicked upon. Sorry for getting carried away but going back to the story, Jstor.org, freefullpdf.com, books.google.com, sciencedirect.com, etc. are some of my favorite sites. The other day, I was reading about management and leadership when I came across the term 'destructive leadership'. I read that Prof. Stale Einarsen has written an elaborate paper on the subject.

As you can imagine, I googled the subject and the paper and found it on Researchgate. I read this brilliant paper throughout but I could not stop the evolution of a small thought bubble in my mind which started growing big. The next day saw me e-mailing the professor, albeit a little warily as I had no idea of how busy Stale will be and most probably just delete my email. However, Stale immediately replied to me back( something which never happened in India when I was doing my degree) and cleared my conception.

I think that this is yet another marginal benefit of the shrunk earth. Stale is in Norway and I am in Kolkata, but he has not hesitated to show me the way. Since then, I have written to a famous sociologist praising her book but informing her that chopsticks are not used in Nepal. The lady replied immediately and thanked me and told me that she will make the corrections in the next issue.
This is what I have to say folks. Marginal benefit is the benefit of producing one extra unit at the same fixed costs. My experience is like the marginal benefit of IT growth and the Internet .
The relevant mails are given below.

1. My mail to Stale

Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 2:44 AM
To: Ståle Einarsen
Subject: On Destructive Leadership

Dear Professor Einarsen,

I am an engineer from India and I’m sending you this mail as I can’t seem to comprehend an aspect of your model of ‘destructive leadership’ in your paper “Destructive leadership behavior: A definition and conceptual model”.

Cream_Puff.wmv

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Mon, 30 May 2016 17:24:00 +0000

Ghostbusters Trailer (2016 Movie) from SONY Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Fri, 27 May 2016 21:55:00 +0000

THEY ARE COMING FOLKS!

The GHOSTBUSTERS!

The Invisible man,
Slips in to your bed!
OUCH!!!
Who You Gonna Call??

The GHOSTBUSTERS (of course)
and that too in 3D

Here's the official trailers now.

Happy Ghostbusting, folks
with lotsa luv
Bilbo

Communication Tools. Applying the JoHari Window concept to High Value Selling of Capital Equipment. -2

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 00:37:00 +0000

Continuing from our last post, we can therefore say that the Johari Window is a

model of a tool by which we come to know as to how we are faring in our inter-
personal communications. Do people trust us? If not-why? Have we

communicated with subordinates where we want to go i.e. why I am asking them to

do these tasks? Are we continuing to have progress reviews & meetings at

predetermined milestones? (The figure below shows the model)

         By introspection, the manager can
set the pane boundaries at different
points (the boundaries need to be set
honestly if the output is to be of any

value).

The Johari Window is a great communication review tool. However,because of thinking blocks, we fail to see sometimes fail to see the wood for the trees.

Now, what’s gonna happen if we use it between us and our customers? i.e. in our Sales Deals instead of in team communication. A good communication tool should work everywhere where communication matters. Hypothetically, let's say that, we are selling and/ or marketing high value business equipment /systems..Um......lets say an imported belt drive power pressure filter with five rollers which has a FOB cost of ϵ 570,000 including commissioning costs. ( I’m making a big deal of this because the JoHari Window will not be effective for small deals.)

Communication : Application of 'the Johari Window Concept" in Sales & Marketing - 1.

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sat, 23 May 2015 19:02:00 +0000

Dear Reader,

In an earlier post ( Why a " Business Administration" Diploma is Important in a Sales Career), I had discussed about the Engineering Degree of 4 years and compared it to the MBA diploma of two years, and then tried to find the reason why a BE degree with a MBA diploma is starting to carry more weight with bosses and employers. This is because a vast majority of us engineers lack the ability to apply the skills learned as needed in a business, which is what all situations in life are. Some weaknesses of engineering courses is nothing is taught about planning, budgeting, managerial accounting, finance, leadership and motivation and many other things which helps us to view the world like Superman with his X-ray vision. Hence, the difference and I have to admit its justification. However, if you have some experience, you can study them and master them on your own. This will enable you to apply your business-targeted concepts as and when a situation arises for that. Of course, you won't have a diploma to frame, but then it is the knowledge which matters not the diploma. We will try to tackle a few business management concepts in this blog every now and then starting today with the Johari Window.

The Johari Window is a management tool which greatly helps in maximizing productivity in teamworking. It helps in showing to what extent is communication synchronized among the team members. Remember, very often team members may not have worked with each other before and a synchronization has to be built before performance starts. JW makes this evident to the members and specially to the team leader who has the responsibility to faciliate this within the shortest possible time. The name sounds exotic 'JOHARI window' but the word is merely the coalescing of the first names of its two inventors, JOseph Luft and HARIngton Ingham in 1955. Not very exotic in reality, ladies & gentlemen.

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A BREAK FOR INTROSPECTION

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 17:54:00 +0000

Hello Friends,

I’m back from my sabbatical. Now, before going, I was having a tough time here finding sales subjects to write ABOUT. Perhaps, you guys are thinking that “Holy Shit! This guy’s flipped”, but it’s completely true. I’ve covered more or less most of the areas in selling capital equipment Sales, which deserve mention. I had no interesting points. Moreover, as you may appreciate, everything in this blog, is what I believe in, what has occurred or I believe can happen. I have never used the textbook approach to blogging.

( that is , take a textbook and write about all the interesting words you come across, making it look like things you know or /and have experienced). So, I went in for an

INTROSPECTION AND OBSERVATION session.

Post introspection, I find that there IS a problem but what about us introducing a not sales only but combined with Marketing and Business Management subjects. If that sounds funny to you, think about it this way. We were discussing selling Capital Equipment and /or Industrial Marketing. We will still be doing so but with the nuances of management science weavings into the fabric at random points.

So seat tight and put on your seatbelts. The show ain't over yet, not by a long way.

Finally, on the International Women's day, join me in supporting women's empowerment, with this song of John Lennon entitled "Woman"

With lotsa love
Bilbo Hobbit

What is Relationship Selling? [REPOST]

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 13:41:00 +0000

Today in the capital equipment and machinery market, business volume is growing and so are the targets. But, you know that you have a plum order from the "nice customer is all yours”. Then one day, you go to your customer one fine morning, after several weeks, and ask him about “my order”
[ look at the arrogance] .And he says “Oh that order, it went to the competition Ltd”.." I thought that you weren't interested and my boss was asking about it" . Your card castles collapse as you realize that the order is lost forever-the one high value order on which your target was built up on...sounds familiar?

Later on, after you finish berating your juniors and your boss stops berating you; you realize that you never had a relationship with the customer at all. This is an example of what-not-to- do in relationship selling. Do not take anyone for granted! In our line (high value engineering equipment selling) it makes you redundant and in our race (homo-sapiens)it leads to your extinction

Say, you are looking over 20 accounts, do an accounts versus sales analysis. You will find that at the most 5 or 6 account for 70% to 75% of your sale. You try to find out how many visits you made this year in 7 months, and it so turns out that you made only 1 visit, because you thought that would buy only from you. In addition, you tried to sell to the 15 customers who give you maximum 25% of the sales. What foolishness! What audacity! You took your customer for granted and that is never done!

In relationship selling, you make a relation with the customer’s key man. He may not be the person who signs the order but it is his decision, all the way. Develop a professional relationship with him. Tell the truth to him and no bullshit please. Tell him that you want the order but you also want to have a seller-buyer relation with him, so that it’s not one way traffic.

You try to help him in whatever way possible. You offer suggestions, which can help the customer increase his productivity. At first, the customer may be suspicious but later he will realize that you are sincere and honest. He will trust you although he may not trust your product. If that happens, you have to hard sell him (or her) and you should be able to do what you promise. Visit him once a week-fortnight. This gentleman or lady then will be your friend come hell or high water. It’s you he will trust and your word will be the last word on the subject. You are your customer's default Purchase Manager.

Build up your relationships today, all in your major revenue-earning customers, and you will not regret it no matter which company you represent, in the future. If you have a good product, the customer will buy it just because you are selling it. Hard to believe, but this is true folks. I have done it myself. There are exceptions to every rule. If you are selling swords to Atilla-the –Hun, then maybe it will not be wise to have a close relationship.

With price becoming so competitive and quality being measured in microns, the day is not far away when your relation will count. Build win-win relationships with your customers, and not only will you get the business, but you will also gain a friend. This is the magic of relationship selling.

I know a gentleman (very senior) who is now in IOCL Gujarat Refinery. We still keep in touch. And I know that if I go to him with a proposal, he will consider it, because he will be sure that what I propose is a win-win thing.

This post is so important that it doesn't matter how many times I repeat it.

Taking your leave for now,

Your friendly neighborhood blogger
Bilbo

The Mechanics of Creativity

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 16:01:00 +0000

THE MECHANICS OF CREATIVITY

WE ALL KNOW WHAT CREATIVITY IS BUT HOW TO BRING IT OUT?

PRESENTING CREATIVITY-AT-WILL

The Creativity theory

Hi friends.

This is your friendly neghbourhood blogger again and this time we will tackle the mechanics of creativity. In this post we will start from where we left off.

Last time,we discussed creativity in general and concluded that creativity is nothing but looking at things from a different perspective.Now, so many different things happen in our range of vision that the brain employs a filtering system so that we see only what will interest us. The other things also happen but those files go to the recycle bin of our mind and are then eliminated altogether. Maybe, some are retained as temporary cookies which will explan subconscious and conscious vision,but that is besides the subject of discussion.

The Gorilla in the basketball court

I read about this a long time back and I may not be 100% accurate but its good enough for the purpose. In a study of cognition, a group of volunteers are taken to a basketball court where the opposing teams are in white and black. The volunteers are told to count the number of passes the team in white make. The whistle blows and soon a high intensity passing game starts and lasts for about 1 to 2 minutes. In the middle a man in a gorilla suit comes up, beats his chest, and then walks away. When the time runs out, the volunteers are asked about the number of passes and they give the answers. They are then asked about the gorilla and nobody recalls seeing a gorilla.

If you want to check it out for yourself, there are plenty of videos posted on youtube.com by colleges and educators.You can easily get a lot of links from google. However, most people find that it doesn't work as well as described, because they are already watching out for the gorilla,which is not supposed to be the way its done. You already know about the gorilla which you are not supposed to know. Therefore, I am linking another video which shows us the same thing, allbeit, in a different scenario alltogether.Check it out by clicking HERE.

How does creativity work

We have become so accustomed to thinking in the same old way like “Event A will lead to B and B will lead to C”, i.e. in a cause and effect way that starting to look from a different perspective is difficult. Let us now bring Edward De Bono, into the picture the man who first coined the term “Lateral Thinking” and who is considered as the leading intellectual authority on the subject of creative thinking. Dr. De Bono has written a long list of books on the subject of creative thinking starting from 1969 and has more than 35 years of experience in this field.

Creativity and a Sense of Humor

In his book “Serious Creativity” Dr. De Bono, describes the humor model of lateral or creative thinking. Dr. Bono argues that in normal cases, our thinking process moves in the conventional straight line of cause and effect, as shown in the figure below. Going along this main route of thought, one comes across various sidetracks, following some of which and then reversing direction, we can come back to the originating point i.e. we can think creatively and maybe, find new answers to existing problem, or in other words, exercise innovation. However, like the gorilla, we never see them, as we mentally block these sidetracks and go straight and straight on, in the usual and common way. We therefore need a way to make these blocks appear. Dr.Bono calls these ‘provocations’ i.e. events which provokes us to leave the main track and enter the sidetrack, naming them 'po'.

HUMOUR AND CREATIVITY: A NATURAL PO

USING CREATIVITY TO BOOST YOUR SALES

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Thu, 08 May 2014 22:31:00 +0000

Two words which have been ruthlessly abused in the last ten to fifteen years are 'CREATIVITY' and "INNOVATION". If you are somewhat sceptical of that ststement, then listen to this. I was just going through the paper a few days back when I came to this line in an obituary I was just glancing through of an old codger who died of old age in his nineties. And there was the sentence" Mr So.-and-so did many innovative things in his lifetime. Really??

"Familiarity breeds Contempt" and today we are so familiar with the I-word and to a lesser extent the C-word, that they don't mean anything. The tragedy about this is the boy who is eaten up..
You: Which boy?
Me: You know the one who used to shout 'Wolf"
You. Was he eaten up?
Me: Aaaah! He wasn't . I am just indulging in some creative innovation.
You go : Waaah! How do you do that? ....

That is the story of Innovation and Creativity, folks!. We have become so familiar with it today that we won't recognize the real I and C, even if they dance the "Lungi dance" in front of us stark naked. We will tackle the I-word in another post and in this post, we will just tackle with creativity.

Just what is Creativity

Creativity is " the ability to look at inputs from a different perspective /viewing angle so that the resultant output makes sense or enhances value"
Creativity is not jumping to conclusions.

Some people confuse creativity with " Creative Writing" , a phrase much bandied around these days, which is not correct. Creative writing is connected to the writer and the writer's work. Perhaps if I give an example of creativity, it will be more clear to you, dear reader, just what I am trying to tell you.

Let us imagine a hypothetical situation where a person travelling along a road comes to a fork on the road. One arm goes to the right and the other to the left. He is now at a loss as to which way to go. Actually both the fork arms first diverge and then converge again to form the road again. But our hero dosen't know this. He is flummoxed and unable to continue. But after a couple of hours,a light bulb shines on the top of his head. Why don't I look at my road from a higher elevation, he thinks? He climbs a tree (growing conveniently nearby) and from the very top sees that the roads meet again . He climbs down and continues on his way, right or left now makes no difference.This is creativity

We must all have experienced the phenomenon that something written by you which looks perfect, appears flawed when you look at it the next morning. This is Creativity as I understand it and the credit for my comrehension (only if correct-if flawed, its mine) must go to Dr. Edward DeBono and his books.

Creativity and Selling

But as you may be wondering by now, how can creativity help in selling. Simple ! Take nothing for granted and try thinking of a tough problem in different ways. If you are just not able to sell

HOW AND WHEN TO PLAY BUDGETORY AND 'STAY FIRM' GAMES, ON RECIEPT OF A RFQ

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 03:16:00 +0000

Industrial Selling is a different cup of tea in India than in the West. Here reject RFQ's at your own peril.

I read Geoffrey James’s article titled “How to give the customer a price quote” and it’s really a fine piece of sales writing. I wanted to write something else this week.But then I thought about all those young kids, in sales and marketing, the newbies and the almost-s all over the immense country and I changed my mind. (In Kolkata its 39 ^o Celsius plus in the shade in March, so I can just think about Chennai.In India, you don't get AC cars to zip to on sales calls in junior levels, so I decided to write this blog post instead).Apologies Geoff, but that kind of selling will not get you anywhere in INDIA. Sure, the track is right but your direction is all wrong, my friend. Just my 5cents but you need the culture shock absorber.

In India, you have a system of budgetary quotes and firm quotes. Now, I am sure that there must be a system of budgetary quotes in the West too, you just use a term for it, which I am not familiar with.Anyway, some of the biggest requirements come from the Public Sector Organizations(e.g.IOCL the only Indian company which is in the Fortune 500, if I'm not wrong). In a sort of matrix cum pyramidal structure, you have many different departments. For instance Engineering Services (ES) and Maintenance are different departments and you can have business with both as the ES as well as the M.M(mechanical maintenance) as the former goes in for the projects and the latter, the after sales part of the business. Say, you are selling pumps for intake, the concerned in Indian Oil Corp Ltd dept is Power and Utilities.(In other organizations, it may be different). From my experience I can say that if you get a RFQ from such a department, DO NOT EVEN THINK of calling the boss in the department. See who has signed the RFQ and if you find say its a Purchase Manager or even an Asst Manager, from Operations, your stand is vindicated. It is a must to quote but a little later.

The chances are high that if you call up the boss, he will have an even less idea of his requirement then you. Your best bet is the original sender, although he is in no way the final decision maker. In Govt. organizations, there is no final decision maker and that is the way it should be. The operations man wants to buy the things he has mentioned but as he is the one doing the legwork, he's got no authority. Say you are pissed off and do not quote, you may have unquoted yourself out of a job. These guys are good at selecting the equipment type but they need to have an estimate of the cost.That's because proposals beyond 10-15% variation are shot down by the finance guys. Before your lips start curling in derision, let me tell you some of India's most talented engineer's are these.They think of everything too help you, and they don't give you any advantage. You need to have relationship selling experiences with them for the best results

HOW REJECTION CAN BE YOUR MOST EFFICIENT SALES TOOL

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 13:47:00 +0000

Yes, Its true. Sales Rejection, if handled right, can be one of the most potent selling tools, provided of course, that your boss is not the younger (or elder) brother of Hari Sadu (of the Naukri.com TV ad fame).

Why's that? That is because it is only by rejection that one learns. I remember once in my first visit to the man who will be placing the order, as I shook his hand and I handed over my card, Mr. Customer was just looking at my company name and logo and then he asked me " Do you deal with XYZ's products? " and incidentally XYZ was our main competitor-the No 1 in the country with us at No.2. I stared at him, taken aback and told him that they were our competitor. The small room was full of nervous energy and the funny point struck both of us. We smiled and the tension was broken. I told him that I am there to sell my company's products and that I did not have a clue as to how to do that, so I would be obliged if he gives me some advise as to how I can convince him to give us a try-out. That was the start of an excellent relationship and I'm happy to say that after three years, I had replaced most of XYZ's products by ours.Anybody can sell new products to a new factory but phasing out your competitor is not easy, let me tell you.

Whenever you read success stories of people, do you really think that this person , who has written a book on sales, succeeded every time he pushed. Nope-that is impossible. Rejection is as much a part of the sales rep's official experience as acceptance is. In fact the average sales rep is more at home with rejection than acceptance.What you need to do is after each rejection, you need to list down and find what went wrong.

SELLING BY RESEARCH: The Concept of SBR

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 10:13:00 +0000

This blog is proud to say that the phrase "SBR " which stands for 'Selling by Research"was first coined here and the SBR techniques which have been lightly touched here is ORIGINAL to this blog. The idea first germinated here in the form of the written word.

Many Sales/Business Development Managers/General Managers/even VP's think that the more prospects, a salesperson visits, the better. Never mind, if it lays emphasis on quantity rather than quality. The Manager has the data to justify his sales forecasts for the next quarter. And at the month end, when the CEO is surprised to see that the sales person has visited the highest number of potential customers but has flopped in actual selling, the same manager will tell him “there is something wrong here, you lack application, you lack communication skills” the newbie can hardly say that the strategy was devised by the manager himself. "Gee!! that’s not fair" you may say but trust me, these kinds of managers do exist and they are in the majority.

In industrial plants and manufacturing organizations, decision makers have no time to entertain sales-people on fishing expeditions. In Industrial Marketing, which comprises of selling of high or medium value systems, “cold-calls” can backfire on you. Before the net, cold calls were a must. Information is power.Cold calling in industrial marketing was done for collection of market information. Having information gave a party an immense advantage over its competitors. Today, the internet can help your sales-people to collect all information about prospects, making cold-calls redundant.

" We live today in tumultuous times. In the future, people will think us as the most lucky people for never before has a generation witnessed such sweeping technical and socioeconomic changes within such a short time. If you want to survive, you need to adapt, to change with the times unless you want to be extinct. "

The Internet as an Information Source

How do you collect information from the internet? Check websites of service providers usually involved in projects. A few website types, where information is available free are as below. (This is only a partial list and you can find many more classes if you are interested)

(1)B2B trading portals and Business Directories: These contain all information and all you have to do is collection and compiling.

Screen Shot of site. Look at the projects link at the lower right

(An example is http://www.processregister.com which has a section on projects, which gives the location, value, status and the promoter. The website even has the projects classified sector wise. What else do you need?)

Different types of projects classified typewise

(2) Job Portals: These give out information in the form of “Project Managers required for…” or “We require for our new project…”

(3) Websites of Consultants: Consultants often give out details of new consulting jobs they are working on, or have bagged.

If you think that you will get full details of a project from tapping into the above or similar resources, you will be disappointed. What you will get is “leads”. You will get all your detail information then by doing some web research on these leads.

Industrial Marketing &Selling initiated by researching the web, has been named SBR (Selling by Research)-by yours truly because it appears that I am the first person to discuss about this site in public, for which unfortunately processregister.com is not paying me anything.

THE SUPERIORITY OF NUMBERS AND OTHER IRRELEVANT CONTENT

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 14:02:00 +0000

The United States of America.
Custer's last stand : The battle of Little Bighorn 25th June 1876.

As the buffalo became scarcer, Indian tribes lives became hard. The Indians have had enough of being pushed into reservations too, the final straw being the US violation of the treaty of Black Hills, and the unstoppable incursion of white Americans,
as rumors circulated that gold (as in California) was there for the taking in the Black Hills. General George Armstrong Custer, a potential future US president, by nature headstrong, fought against forces led by the Indian Medicine Man and Chief "Sitting Bull" and Chief " Crazy Horse".
Custer disregarded his scout's information that the Indian camps were enormous in size, and estimated about a thousand braves whereas, actually there was 2000-4000 Sioux braves. As was obvious, Custer and the US 7th Cavalry were wiped out, the only living being remaining being ironically Custer's horse 'Commanche'. Custer only had about 700 troopers and then further proceeded to divide them into three units.

No guys, you are still at the same site. I just started off in a different tack this time. Remember all the feedback you had to provide about competition including the market share variance if any and the order value of the competitors in the last quarter etc. Let's admit it this kind of data is impossible to give if you are selling capital equipment and your market is vast. I had often found myself as the sole person of my company in charge of everything of a state ( area not less the entire UK). These forms were frustrating for so often you were required to give break-ups and they were huge waste of time. Moreover, it is quite probable that these forms were used as rough paper -no one ever read them-What do you do?-you collect market data or do you sell? I believe that the objective is served if your boss tells you what information he needs any time (when his boss calls him) and what he needs some time. You than satisfy his need by a mail/letter/fax whatever.
Simple, isn't it? The Indian mentality is to see if you have given the info in the form..Gee! Another example of why western sound marketing principles will not work in South East Asia, unless you tailor make them so as to suit the natural conditions.Coming back, the competition often had offices having three-four officers while I had to operate from my house, and they ruled.(I finally started targeting big customers and making my brand superior in numbers.and I kept my job that way)

The point I want to make is FORGET all those things you may have heard about the quality of our sales people vs. theirs. These even out in the long run. What matters is how many players you have compared to the opposition. In an organizational perspective, it is the financial muscle you have.

In this post,I want to continue my take (through Ries and Trout)on Karl Von Clausewitz's ideas and an important one is " Always keep your forces concentrated in an overpowering mass"-in other words' attack with all your resources at the decisive battle because history shows us that the army which is larger in size always wins. In WWII, had the US not joined the allies-giving them a huge superiority in numbers-the English and the French were being outfought and would have lost. If you are American, than maybe your national anthem would have been "Dixie" if General Robert E. Lee had 25,000 more men. I did not know that either but the fact is that in Gettysburg ,1863 General Lee had 75,000 men while General Meade of the Union had 88,000 men.

Sales & Marketing------Strategies( THE COLA WAR)

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 05:51:00 +0000

Dear Friends,

I guess we discussed enough about Sales and Marketing last time. You should be able to say by now that the photo opposite is wrong, if the intention behind posting it was only for Sales &Marketing! Nah, I just got carried over as these guys really look cute in those superhero costumes.

The Error in the Picture
The thing that is wrong with the photograph is that a couple of more of Marketing's sub-ordinates are not here. And one among them whom you just can't ignore, leaving sales aside,as he is really really indispensable. Monsieur "Strategy" is the one I refer to.
In our profession,ladies and gentleman, costing is okay but she is no ogre. What is important is how and with what strategy, the approach is made. This is much more important than the price in Selling of High-Value Equipment.

In certain Sales blogs,you often come across Lao's "The Art of War"but as I have said before, I prefer to read Clausewitz's book "On War"which reflects on history's famous wars to underscore the points in his book. Great rivalries today see the market leader take themselves up as the competition. The best defense is not to lack the courage to attack yourself says Clausewitz. If Coke had launched an own variant with a 'youth' target, Pepsi would have had no niche to operate.

[Karl Von Clausewitz was a
General in the Prussian Army who wrote the book in 1852 after retirement].

Clausewitz tells us at length about how the strengths of the enemy can often be converted to weaknesses.One of the best examples of this (says Ries and Trout)is how Pepsi Cola of New York socked one to Atlanta's Coca-Cola. In 1915,Coke was sold at a price of 10c for an unique capacity of its bottle which was 6 1/2 oz. Coke had no real competitors, which led to complacence.

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MARKETING WITH SALES AND THE REST OF THE GANG

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 17:40:00 +0000

HOUSE OF CARDS

Hi Friends,

So-how are you and how's life been treating lately..Me? Its been a lousy few days.

As you must be knowing by now about my addiction with the net,I was on a high the other day when I saw a blog post. My eyes stuck to the title which said " Now shove this paper on sales face-Marketing". not those exact words, but I'm sure you get the drift.

I stared at it open-mouthed in surprise and tried to know more about the author. But no information was available except for his name. Then it struck me that holy shit! this guy does not know the difference between sales and marketing as yet. Just think of a hypothetical situation where you are walking along with a werewolf expert in a deserted countryside. Suddenly a werewolf sees you both and gives chase, and your friend asks you " Who's that guy?" ..Eeeps!!! And you were counting on this dude to protect you!!!
So, this post is gonna be about Marketing and Sales-the much misunderstood dynamic duo-so that the werewolf doesn't get you............

The entire act of fulfilling a need of a section or few people by allowing them to purchase whatever it is they want is called marketing. Marketing is not one thing-it is a process where different activities come together and start from checking the need an entity has, devise way to fulfill that need, and sell it to the person who is wiling to pay the highest amount of revenue. We have our needs implanted biologically and later psychologically inside us since we are born. In the womb, all its needs were catered to automatically but after birth, the baby say feels odd and therefore bawls. It wants milk which he got every time he wanted it. So it now bawls and presto it gets it. This is the process of breast-milk marketing. In subsequent posts, we are going to visit a man named Maslow, who will a important cog in this learning process.

We will learn about the need, how to fulfill it, how to position it, the importance of advertising, where to target it,how to give it, how to fix the costing etc. Look at the illustration above guys, the cards here are the different functions, the card house is marketing. Some of the cards are more important like the one at the bottom-those are card (sale); card (need); card (costing). The cards above are slightly less important maybe. It all depends upon the application.

Rahul Bajaj and Bajaj Auto Ltd.

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A LIGHTER MOMENT with CHUCKRAJANI

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 20:47:00 +0000

You friends are about to see a video clip for two reasons
1. See what cannot be done with the right attitude. Its time to take your butter too forget cheese
2. Its goddam' funny

I just wanted to have a light moment before the video'

SO, here WE CCUUUMMMMMMMM!

The Clash of the Titans ..

Two superhumans in one earth
JUST One earth
So, who do they save? ...EXPEDIA.com

Be with you on or before 24 hours, till then it's love from BILBO

------------------------

REST IN PEACE.

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 01:25:00 +0000

Rest in Peace, Friend

The Demise of the Cold Call

(From Hi-Value Capital Equipment Selling)

In life, everything changes. From processes to organisms, there is nothing absolute. It is a fortunate fact that most of these changes take place very slowly, as otherwise, we would not have had our laws of academic fields (collectively called philosophy, here after) by which we try to understand, the things which happen all around us.

Some wits are of the opinion that science breeds ignorance. Their logic is that for every question science answers, two questions prop up. Therefore, science can never answer all questions because at any one time the number of questions is bound to be double or exponentially more then the number of answers. The thinking is I admit, original but the conclusions are in error. I ‘ll dispute this statement with a single sentence which is “do automobile designers start their design from the wheel?” No indeed! They do not.

Similarly, capital equipment selling has also changed, in the sense that “cold calling” has become old and died. Let me define it still further, the cold call hasoutlived its usefulness just as the steam engine had given way to more modern locomotives. Cold calling was indispensable at one point of time for all selling, like the steam powered train. But in high value machinery and capital equipment selling, we do not design cars from the wheel. However in volumetric selling, it’s still very much there-sales of hardware, valves, electrodes, machine oil mainly consumables etc. all depend upon cold calling.

What is a high value sale? I’ll define it Anything from twenty grand and up. Earlier we did not have access to all that is happening in the world instantly. Hence, there were good chances that unless you shared the same watering hole with your competitors, you wouldn’t know who required your product. As competition grew more and more intense, watering holes became redundant and cold calling started. You dropped on potential customers and got introduced, got leads, got inquiries too if you were lucky. This is cold calling.

But today with the modern technology you have at their disposal, that same information can be obtained from the internet in more details. Now let us suppose you are an entrepreneur and you are purchasing filtration machines, of whatever type suits your purpose best, which is to filter and recover the mined coal particles and recover them. Say a salesperson from a company comes along and makes a request to meet you. You meet him and he says they make filtration machines and he thought he would enquire if they have any requirement. You have plenty of things to do then to recite your requirement (you had met the man for the solution) so you direct him to an engineer, who tells him what he wants to know. Say, if the proposal develops then the person will want to meet you, but will you want to meet him?

Top B-Schools in India

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sat, 27 Jul 2013 09:13:00 +0000

www.siliconindia.com/mba/mba-survey-2013.html.
Top 100 B-schools in India

Why a " Business Administration" Diploma is Important in a Sales Career.

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 23:24:00 +0000

Yes, Indeed. Why do companies give so much weightage to MBA's (or even BBA's maybe) ? You are selling engineering equipment? So, how come irrespective of your engineering degree, if you and a MBA start from ground zero, you lose out every time?

Have you ever pondered this question ? In almost every office you'll find slimy apparent know-alls... Ask them this and you won't see their ugly mugs for the rest of the day!

Okay friends, enough of foreplay than.MBA's study for two more years after graduation. It stands to reason that they must be studying something. Yes, they do study a lot of 'shite' , but they also study plenty of things that matter.

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NOSTALGIA TINGED WITH EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHTS

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Sun, 14 Jul 2013 11:09:00 +0000

Chowringee Road 69 years back.

Dalhousie Square in 1944.

I guess since I don't have the copyrights to these pictures but telepathic consent was obtained from the owner.
Have a great time, people of Kolkata, don't think....IF ONLY.... that way is dead-ended

MY LONG ABSENCE

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 18:38:00 +0000

IN CONTEMPLATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL TRUTH

Hi Friends,

Now this may come in as a surprise but I have not posted anything for a long time. No, my knowledge TANK of sales management lessons of capital equipment has not become empty. There are still many secrets in this brain cells, which will benefit the world and you, dear reader, but then patience is a virtue we must practice. For life is all about hope which is about practice without disappointment. For this you need patience.

I had gone on my philosophical sabbatical and have lots and lots of facts to share.

So keep watching this space , dear reader

Till we meet again, very soon ----"Take care"

With lotsa love from

Someone from Bag's End.

HOW TO ATTEND A TENDER OPENING (PUBLIC SECTOR)

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 03:28:00 +0000

AS YOU'RE ON THE WAY

I do not know about you guys but I find the journeying part of any process, the most monotonic. The beginning is well, a little hard but after you begins and before you end is the period which you may find boring, but is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART in a tendering process.

In my sales career, I have had the experience of excellent beginnings neutralized by poor follow up. And it is here that temperament and the confidence is necessary. People will try to sledge you so that you lose your concentration. There are no ground rules here. Everything is below the belt. And it is here that experience pays.

Therefore, it follows that it is here, in this stage, that you will be subjected to ridicule & challenges and as in cricket, it is necessary to keep your head straight. Think of all those runs you have scored against better attacks (if you have not, imagine you would have...forget about real life, if you cannot even DREAM about winning, you are suffering from acute loser blues! My friend, perhaps you should consider a different career and I'm not trying to be funny).

I think that before we move on to another block, maybe we should have a recap. And here goes

Tender Openings: What a specialist does

1. Be present when the tender is being opened, if it is a press tender.Do not be late.

2. Try to make a rolling-your-eyes.."young kids really" expression to the bossman.

3. Don't antagonize anyone but stand up to get the information you are entitled to.

4. If the indentor is known to you, do be in a hurry to end the process, so that the other guys know the least.

5. Judge the competition and you have the idea about their bids.

6. Do not be the first person to leave the room but don't be a pest either so that they can push you out.

7. Give interesting technical answers should you get a chance.

8. Keep your ears in the customer's room. No, I don't mean use the extendable ears invented by Fred and George in "the order of the Phoenix" but think about it and it is possible.

ANECDOTE

One of the biggest dealers of KBL once tried his best to get me out of the race. He could not do anything at the lower level and went up and met the GM of the IOCL refinery. His attempt flopped and I got that order for 2 nos HSC pumps with drives and accessories, i.e. M+P landed that supply order. I don't need to mention the dealer's name as the biggest dealers in Assam and one of the biggest in India. The same company M+P later became a little inedible. but life is like that. Moreover, I was lucky that by the time I quit, I had acquired the rudimentary basics of capital goods marketing. Today M+P market in NE has gone down and the conditions exist which are only a little better then when I was there. It's become the wild west all again

Finally, I forgot to tell you how to ask for an extension. Irrespective as to whether you are organized or not, you'll always find that you are unable to complete in time. Send over a fax or an e-mail asking for an extension because of blah blah( the best excuse always is to the tender justice). Remember, always ask two times what you want and you will get it. There is a way to do everything and everything is best done in that way. You should either do it or learn how the other man does it, and then try it your way. Its the runs which matter, not how they come

I guess that does it for today.

See you next time.

Take care and have an awesome day

Bilbo

(I put in the Beatles photo ‘cos there is a similarity...we are on the road too but specially because I am a fan)

Dear Sir or Madam, will ya read my blog

it took me days to write it, I just slogged.

Its got a number of ads like a flick

Please why don't ya just click....
..Starving Blog writer...
Starving Blog writer...........

Free Kick - free flash game,flash game,small game,online flash game

noreply@blogger.com (Bilbo-Baggins) — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:03:00 +0000