Tag: Marketing

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How I landed my first job…

That was 1992. Landed up in Chennai after my Engg graduation.

Took up a Scholarship exam conducted by NIIT. Those days, if you were not studying at NIIT, you were missing something.

Got 50% scholarship for 1 year course.

Paying them back with this post now. 🙂

NIIT didn’t sell software courses then. They sold dreams. You visualized your future.

Little did I know then that I was going to land my first job through them.

Also, underwent a course in Sales at NIS, National Institute of Sales, a div of NIIT then.

Loved my Sales course more. We had role plays & our tutor at times even recorded the call & played it back. Life rolled by.

One day, saw an Ad in the NIIT notice board for Mktg Exec at Sonata. My classes were between 7-9 pm & the student service center was always closed by then.

Went before 5 pm one day. Met them. They said it’s closed. First rejection.

Told them my name & that I’m doing a course at NIS as well. That’s it.

I went to my classes.

Later, after few days, they located me.

I got my first job.

Enjoyed my work so well that I could write a story now for every deal I closed, even after so many years.

Learning:

1. Branding can take you places.

2. Love your job / choose one that you love.

3. Strike while the iron is hot!

4. Marketing is nothing but weaving stories.

5. Product is a given. It’s marketing that makes all the difference.

#HappySelling

#work #job #b2b #career #dreams

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LinkedIn Tip: How to network!

If you want to connect with someone you don’t know, here is a tip:

First follow them. They will get a notification that you followed them. They will look at your profile and if they are interested, they will follow you back.

If they follow you back, you know they are interested.

Now, you can send them an invite to connect.

They will not say “I don’t know”, instead they’ll accept your invitation to connect.

I used to see a veteran walking his dog every morning in our neighborhood. First, I saw him. He saw me. Then I smiled at him. He smiled back. This happened for several days. Then we started saying “Hello, Good Morning”.

We then became friends and spoke to each other. He eventually became someone whom I trusted and consulted for advice. He treated me like his son. I treated him like my dad.

He and his wife even visited our home and invited us for their younger son’s wedding.

Learning:

  1. It is possible to get to know & network with anyone. Did I say anyone?
  2. You can sell to complete strangers [who else will you sell to], but make them your friends first.
  3. Sale happens when there is an exchange of value & reward. Prior to that become likeable.
  4. People buy from people. They know. And like.
  5. Whatever we did offline to crack into an Account applies on LinkedIn as well.

Happy Selling!!

#b2b #changethegame #sales #marketing #likeable #network #linkedin #tip

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Networking in Sales!

That was Year 1996.

I had just then started selling to Corporate. Until then, I was selling to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Selling to corporate called for lot more skills than selling to entrepreneurs & small businesses.

Networking skill is one of them.

We didn’t have #LinkedIn then.

I was hanging out where my clients met.

Road shows, seminars, conferences, product launches, workshops and any event where the corporate was in full attendance.

In most cases, the event would be conducted by our Principals – Microsoft, Oracle, IBM etc. We used to get a stall outside the hall to showcase our solutions.

Do you know how and when I met my clients?

During tea breaks and lunch time.

I sacrificed my lunch to go around and meet people. When they were having their lunch.

It used to pay off.

I would introduce myself. Exchange business cards. Would ask them if they are looking for some help.

I then promise to visit them soon and talk further. They’ll agree.

If there were 2000 people in attendance, I would have met at least 40 customers. That was just 2%.

But I have 40 contacts now.

I would start my outreach immediately after the event.

I provided value to my prospects before they bought anything. And I provided more value after the sale.

Coming back to networking, I networked not just with prospects and customers but also with competitors, partners and principals. Literally, anyone in the Eco-system.

I would know about the purchase of Air Conditioners by my prospect through the AC vendors, even though I was selling only Software.

All those strategies apply these days as well. On LinkedIn as well as otherwise also.

Stay tuned for more stories.

Happy Selling!!

#sales #customers #prospects #networking #skills

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Don’t stop dreaming!

Looking at me sending proposals or some documents to customers all the time, my son, who was 5 years old then, came up with his own imagination. He used to use his building blocks and make a laptop and work on it. Then use another piece of building block as a mobile phone and call his friends and ask “squeaky, I had sent you a document, have you received it?” and say “oh, you didn’t receive it, I will send it to you again”. And he used to call his other friends – rabbit, tiger etc and repeat the same story. By the way, squeaky was a squirrel and he was his best friend.

Today, at 12, he is using Microsoft Teams and a real Dell Latitude laptop to send, what else but, documents [homework] to his teachers and his real friends who have missed the online classes. Dream come true.

We shouldn’t stop dreaming. It is just a matter of time before it comes true. Keep dreaming all the time.

What #dreams are you chasing?

Key Takeaways:

1. Who we are, where we are doesn’t matter. What matters is our dreams.
2. We shouldn’t stop dreaming.
3. It is just a matter of time before our dream comes true.
4. We should act as if the dream has already come true.

#goals #plans #passion #business #sales #marketing

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America, August, Apple, Amazon – A’s & the Aces!

You must have read the news, I am sure.

Apple became the first $ 1 Trillion company in terms of market valuation in August this year, followed by Amazon, the second $ 1 Trillion company.

What makes Apple & Amazon tick?

One thing I am sure, they are focused on Customer Experience & making lives simpler for their customers.

Daniel Martins, an independent researcher says: “It’s too high of a bar to assume that they’ll succeed at everything that they do.” “But at the same time, I think Amazon is the best combination in the world of the scale of a large company and that entrepreneurial DNA with the spirit of a startup.”

So, that’s the secret.

It is reported that Apple took long to reach there whereas Amazon sprinted to get there. Amazon took 3 months to cover the last 200 billion whereas Apple took 15 months to do the same, news agencies reported.

Apple was founded in 1976 & Amazon in 1994.

Amazon generates an annual revenue of 178 Billion & in 2018 it may make a paltry sum of 8.5 Billion as profits. It employs around 550,000 people worldwide.

While there are differences between these two Trillion Dollar Giants, the common thing is this: They both know how to market and sell.

Jeff Bezos = Bill Gates + Warren E. Buffett, in terms of Net Worth.

Between Apple and Amazon, one sells at a premium whereas the other lowers prices consistently. You know who.

Some ideas to follow:

  1. If you do Marketing right, everything will fall in place.
  2. Create great Customer Experiences.
  3. Create excitement – on your products & services – and for people to work with you
  4. Have an entrepreneurial DNA.
  5. Have the spirit of a start-up.
  6. Be agile. Respond faster.
  7. Make lives simpler, better & a lot easier.
  8. Sell your dreams. Products will follow.
  9. Create a community of believers.
  10. Last but not the least: You can even start today. And Create. [I didn’t say “Compete”, for a good reason.]

Happy Creating!

Happy Selling!!

#sales #startup #ideas #marketing #branding

Contact us at:

Sales at zignalytics .com for any help in Marketing / Sales / CRM.

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An Interior Designer reveals his secret!

I asked him how me manages his customer data, in the hope that I will generate interest for a CRM.

He is my friend. And it was a casual conversation. He laughed & said “we don’t have too much data to manage”.

What he said after that makes sense.

He said that he & his team complete the interior designing of a flat or a villa or an office space & hand it over to customers. We make sure that they are happy, he said. They refer customers to us & most of our business comes only through word of mouth & referral, he added.

He said, he mostly gets invited for the inauguration of the property. It is there he meets his prospective customers. Now there’s the secret sauce. Hang on for a second. He said, if those people, his customer’s friends & relatives, who come for the inaugural function, like his work, they will take his business card & call him when they have a need.

This is nothing but in-bound marketing coupled with social proof, touch & feel & non salesy approach all put together. What more can you ask for? He has all the relevant marketing strategies with right mix & proportion. It is a well oiled machinery. It will take care of itself.

He should only concentrate now on deliveries, quality, speed & customer satisfaction. Fantastic, isn’t it?

Some pointers for us, to work on:

  1. Be where our customers are.
  2. Be non-salesy.
  3. Provide social proof.
  4. Let the word of mouth spread.
  5. Provide good customer service.
  6. Create a community of happy customers.
  7. Let our customers touch & feel. Test Drive, Free Trial, Freemium, Freebies, what have you?
  8. Get referrals. No sales involved with the referred prospect. Our customers do the marketing & sales for us.
  9. Pick up the phone. Meet face to face.
  10. Be friendly. After all, we don’t live to sell or do business & make money. Only.

Happy Marketing!

Happy Selling!!

sales @ zignalytics .com

#marketing #inbound-marketing #wordofmouth #referral

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Cabbage Roll, a packaged solution!

I love surprises at the Dining table. Who doesn’t? My wife treated me to something called as Cabbage Roll recently. Heard it for the first time in life.

Ingredients: Cabbage [Red or Green], Chickpeas [Channa dal], Garlic, Pepper, Tomato, Coriander leaves, Small Onions, Carrots, Walnuts, Cucumber seeds. Soak Chickpeas overnight, keep it for sprouting for over 8 hours. Take the sprouts, add Garlic and Pepper and grind it to a nice paste and keep it ready. Take a cabbage leaf, apply the chickpeas paste, stuff it with Tomato, Small Onions, Carrots. Break walnut into smaller pieces and  add it. Sprinkle Cucumber seeds and Coriander leaves and roll it. It is ready. You can add Pepper [crushed] if you wish, for taste.

No one likes to eat cabbage raw. [Though it is high in Anti-Oxidants and fights Free Radicals] Or for that matter raw chickpeas. When you package it nicely, it sells. Ah, it “sells”. Something that sells catches my attention. My mind starts working to understand what makes it tick. I explore its DNA then. So that I can clone it.

Here is the inference from this experience: If you package your solution well, it sells. If it is given in a form that is consumable [or bite size as they are called], it will be consumed. I can see lot of ideas mushrooming in your mind right now.

In my first job, during a road show for Desk Top Publishing [DTP] Solution at Cochin [in Kerala, India], I remember a customer walking in and asking for the solution. What’s strange in that, you may ask. But here’s what he asked, in Malayalam: “Kuppy evade?” In English: “Where’s the bottle?”. He is a hard core Printer and he was expecting the Solution in a bottle. 🙂

Happy Packaging!

Happy Selling!

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Why do Customers buy what they buy?

Have you ever asked your best customers why they bought from you. This is essential to position your product or service.

Some of the reasons why customers buy what they do:

  1. They perceive a value in the product or service.
  2. To improve their productivity.
  3. To increase ease of doing business.
  4. To improve their profits.
  5. To build their brand image in the market.
  6. To beat competition.
  7. To be ahead in technology adoption.
  8. To streamline business processes.
  9. To improve employee satisfaction and morale.
  10. To satisfy the investors.

Happy Selling!!

Contact: kannan@zignalytics.com for any help in #Sales #Marketing #CRM

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Lead Generation Tips

Lead Generation and Prospecting are two very important activities for any Organization. These can make or break an Enterprise. In some Organizations, it is the Marketing team that does the lead generation and passes the Marketing Qualified Leads [MQL] over to the Sales team. And sales qualifies these leads before taking it further.

And Sales also does Prospecting. From making cold calls, running a survey, conducting a customer satisfaction audit, asking for customer references, engaging existing clients to warming up prospects who had expressed interest in the past, targeting named accounts, Sales does everything to generate prospects.

Let us take a look at some ways to generate leads:

  1. LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator: You should use it extensively to research, target and find prospects.
  2. Use your website to generate leads – by implementing SEO, Website optimization, Call to Action forms, giving free Ebooks, useful and educational blogs [like this one]. Just do everything under Inbound Marketing and Content Marketing.
  3. Webinar Attendees.
  4. Roadshow – visitors to your stall.
  5. Power Breakfast meeting attendees.
  6. Promotional campaign respondents.
  7. Customer referrals.
  8. Podcast Attendees.
  9. Customer Satisfaction Audits.
  10. Existing Clients.

Happy Selling!!