Marketing | Teik Oh

3 Ways to Increase Your Sales

Mar 20 2015

Tell me if this sounds familiar:-

For some reason, perhaps you want to increase profits or you just want to grow your business, you sat down and decided you needed to increase your sales by setting a new sales target. Having worked out what sales you need to increase your profits or grow your business, you look at your new sales target – at how much you need to increase your current sales by – and you went “Oh crap!”

The increase in sales is scary! Oh my goodness, increasing my sales by 30% sound alright but that’s an extra $600,000! How the heck am I going to do that???

This video tells you exactly how to do it in three different ways that leverage up to a substantial increase in sales.

Remember all sales are made up of three components:-

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How To Build Innovation Into Your Business

Feb 23 2015

I have facilitated many strategic and business plans, and read many more, where either embedded in vision and mission statements or spelt out in goals and objectives, is the desire to “be an innovative company”.

Why? What does this mean? Why is innovation important to your business?

To many businesses, when they say they are “innovative” it just means they are flexible and helpful in their service. You want a cashflow projection when you get your tax done? Sure we can do that. So you want a flexible payment plan after we provide you with our legal services? No problem we can tailor one for you. You want a house built off plan but you need a wall repositioned? No problem.

Well, that’s not innovation, that’s just giving good service!

However to some businesses, innovation is critical to the business’ development and growth – innovation that keeps it one step ahead of the competition; innovation that creates a point of difference; innovation that ensures the business and its staff keep developing and growing. In such businesses you need to build innovation into your business model.

To start with it is important to be clear why innovation is necessary in your business and what you mean by innovation. Your staff need to be clear whether they are required to come up with the cure for cancer or whether it is about small but significant change, say to customer service systems. It is also important to realise that innovation means change, particularly if innovation is to be a constant. Are your staff and systems ready to cope with that? Stress is not conducive to innovation so a madly busy office will not be a hot bed for innovation.

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Know your REAL Product

In order to market your product or service effectively, you need to understand what is your real product.

Your product or service is not a list of features. I have heard so often people describing their product or service to me as a whole bunch of features:-

“It’s made of the hardiest materials”

“The design of the micro-circuits came from Germany”

“Our accountants prepare your tax return using their skill”

“The contracts our lawyers draw up include all the legal requirements”.

Features don’t sell products. Customers don’t look for features, they look for the benefits your product provides them and that meets their needs. No one needs “hardy materials” or small German circuits or a skillfully prepared tax return, or even a contract that contains everything it should. People buy something that “lasts forever”, a device that’s small, a tax refund, legal peace of mind.

This video below provides the how and why of getting to know your real product.

Feb 20 2015

Does My Small Business Need a Marketing Plan?

Feb 09 2015

When I talk to small and micro-business owners, I always ask them if they have a marketing plan. Their answer is invariably “no”.

So the next question, in exploration of that, is usually from them: “Why do I need a marketing plan? What I need to do is in my head, and besides, I’m stretched enough as it is running the business”.

I have to point out to them that’s really three questions and I deal with them one at a time. The first question is, as a small business, do I really need a marketing plan?

Of course you do. It need not be a large document, and in a small business you may not need to detail every item in a traditional marketing plan, but you do need a marketing plan, it should be written, and it should deal with the key concepts of marketing.

You need a marketing plan because running a for-profit business without a marketing plan is simply opening your doors and hoping for the best. Finding customers, increasing sales, meeting break-even and growing profits cannot be done while simply hoping for the best. Even if you had, in your head, a sure-fire way to find new customers, or sell more to existing customers, writing it down and sharing it with your team is the best way to relieve the lonely stress of doing it by yourself – they can help achieve those sales targets with you if they know what your sure-fire procedure was.

If you were taking your family on holiday, would you simply buy tickets to where you were going and just arrive? No, you would have some sort of plan that you share with them and some key bookings. So why would you not have a plan when your business’ performance and its livelihood is at stake? Without a marketing plan, you do not know who are your optimum market, the best way of getting to them and appealing to them, the resources you will need to service them, and what you need them to buy and when. Read More

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Communication – Part #172

Jan 30 2015

I talk about communication a lot, which is why this is probably part 172!

However joking aside communication is probably one of the most critical skills anyone in business, or working in a customer-facing role must master.

It is communication that allows you to convey your vision to your team and to your customers. It is communication that leads people, communication that melds a team into a productive group of people working as one, rather than a group of individuals working “together”. It is communication that builds trust in you, and it is communication that tells your customer you are on his side.

In “Communication – Part 172″ (and I am being facetious) I’d like to deal with how professionals communicate with their clients. I have already written elsewhere about how you should avoid jargon, but this time let me talk about how communicating your skill needs more than knowledge about your skill, it needs experience about how your skill is used to help.

Let me set the scene.
Read More

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

Category - Marketing

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3 Ways to Increase Your Sales

How To Build Innovation Into Your Business

Know your REAL Product

Does My Small Business Need a Marketing Plan?

Communication – Part #172