Filed under: Sales
As I See It by Neil Fairley
The Marketing Department
When times get tough, the tough get going, research tells us that a downturn is the one of the best times for the marketing department to stand out and serve the company well.
Normally, in a downturn most CEO’s will look at cutting costs across the business in order to offset a decline in revenue and marketing budgets are most commonly the ones to be cut.
Often the strategic value of good marketing is misunderstood so during a downturn its function and expenditure is likely to be challenged more than other parts of the business.
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Filed under: Human Resources
It has been a long and sometimes exhaustive process of sifting through resumes, conducting interviews and considering test results and finally you have someone you want to hire.
The way you go about offering a job to a candidate is one of the first occasions a potential employee will have the opportunity to acquire a sense of how your company does business.
It’s all about the first impressions you create, handle the process badly, and your new employee may be disillusioned and less productive and that assumes they decide to join your company at all.
So what’s the secret to a firm but fair negotiation process that leaves everyone happy?
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Filed under: Human Resources
Why Independent Contracting is a Significant and Growing Form of Workplace Engagement – With Benefits that shouldn’t be ignored.
As I See It by Neil Fairley
One of the things that have changed in the Australian business landscape is the emergence of employment of Independent Contractors as a means of managing workforce engagement.
Having Independent contractors is often seen as a means of freeing up employers from some of the red tape, IR burden, compliance and on costs associated with more traditional means of labour deployment.
The most obvious flaw in this manner of workforce engagement is that in many cases the independent contractor is operating within the Personal Services Income regime and should in fact be deemed an employee.
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Filed under: Marketing
Why Marketing has a strategic and often unrecognised role in small to medium businesses.
As I See It by Wayne Pratt
Part 1: Background
In many small to medium sized business marketing is seen as advertising and selling what the firm makes or provides.
In essence the focus is on the product and is not orientated toward the customer or consumer.
In reality marketing is not a singular function.
Marketing embraces all aspects of establishing what service to provide or product to manufacture through to establishing an ongoing client relationship based on customer satisfaction.
In today’s competitive business environment capturing customers is not about slick advertising campaigns and catchy packaging but one of understanding what customers need and delivering solutions based on superior value, quality and service.
Sure, one aspect of marketing is persuasion but without product value no amount of advertising or discount selling will ensure the customer will even buy let alone return to repurchase.
Marketing is a modern commercial philosophy that guides the organisations activity.
This is based on, who we are, what can we do, what do we want to achieve, how can we unify the whole organisation to achieve it. This is based on creating and delivering superior customer satisfaction and value when and where required.
Marketing is central to all business functions. It involves a set of managed integrated activities in which the organisations resources are, in a company wide customer orientation capacity, directed toward the opportunities that have been identified.
Parts 2 & 3 will outline the typical steps in developing a successful Marketing Matrix.
Filed under: Sales
As I see it by Neil Fairley
Part 1: A quick way to assess if you’ve got an opportunity of actually winning the business:
- Examine the draft sales proposal carefully, and then answer the following questions.
- Does the client know who you are and have you validated a successful track record. In other words ensure you are really up to the task.
- Does the proposal clearly articulate your understanding of the prospective clients needs?
- Have you replaced any jargon that’s only meaningful within your business?
- Have you managed to get close enough to the prospect so you know if another company has the inside track?
- Does the proposal follow the customer’s specified format and outline?
- Have you removed all the meaningless marketing fluff and hyperbole e.g. “state-of-the-art”?
- If using template material has someone edited out other customer names or information relevant to another company?
- Is the writing clear and forceful rather than flat and technical?
- Has the proposal been edited so that it contains no glaring grammatical errors?
- Can the proposal convince the customer that you can actually deliver on your promise? Sometimes anecdotal stories help here.
- Does the proposal define how customer satisfaction or milestones of achievement are to be measured?
- Is the proposal being submitted on time and to the right people?
Hope you’ve learnt some things about writing a sales proposal in the next part we will aid you in writing the covering letter.
Posted on October 23rd, 2008 by fairley
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