Peddler....

Sorry, I haven't published my blog since my neighbor, Uncle Tony passed away at the end of November. He was my Great Uncle and a great guy.

This tip, based on an except from my June 2009 column in Professional Distributor, is dedicated to and about him. (He was a creative, generous, and funny man and is sorely missed...) 

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My Great Uncle Tony first helped his dad as a fruit and vegetable peddler during the Great Depression when he was only nine years old. He remembers setting up stock, running orders and cleaning-up. Sometimes, he even drove the truck! 

More than once, my Great Grandfather, Pa, would use him to cross-sell items that he’d overbought.

“A lady would shout down for a bag of oranges,” my uncle said. “The old man would have too many apples, so he’d send me upstairs with a bag of apples.The lady would see the bag, and yell at me. She wanted oranges. So, I’d go back down and tell Pa. He would send me back up with the oranges — and the apples again. The women would usually buy both.”

Although I’m not a fan of sneaky sales tactics, I must admit it’s a funny story and a fairly innocent technique. The point is you need to make cross-selling, upselling and add-on sales an integrated part of your sales and marketing strategy. You can even use these techniques to blow-out your old or excess inventory. Bottom line, if each customer buys just a little bit more, the incremental sales can make a big difference in your bottom line -- with little or no extra cost.

Takeaway:  In good times or bad, asking for a bigger order can generate a bigger sale.

Last Things First...

I've been at the AAEX / SEMA tradeshows this week. Attendance this year seemed strong. Hope if you exhibited that you had a great show.

After these shows every year I share the same basic tip. Hope it serves as a good reminder to not let all the hard work go to waste by leaving the job unfinished...

Returning from exhibiting at or attending a tradeshow or special event?

Use your first day back like it's your last day at the event.

Remember: It's easy to get swept away catching up and put off following up.

But what's more important? The day-to-day grind -- or reminding that hot prospect that you're one of the hundreds of exhibitors they saw last week at that big tradeshow?

CEIR studies show that the biggest mistake trade show exhibitors make is dropping the ball on follow-up.

Take a moment to jot a quick "thank you" note, send a catalog, or ship that sample you promised. Don't let your follow-up get fouled up by competing priorities. Set your priority on contacting the hottest prospects first and working your way down the list.

How do you know who's hottest? You should use a lead sheet that asks questions that will help you, like: When do you plan to buy? How many do you plan to buy? What other brands are you considering? (If you didn't use one at this event, make a note to use on at your next event.)

But try to avoid calling anyone you met at the trade show today. After all, they'll probably be as swamped catching up today, as you'll be -- tomorrow.

(This means please don't be offended if I don't take call you today -- be inspired.)

Tech-No Two....

Last week I was pointing out the dependence today's sales & marketing has on technology and lamenting some technical issues I faced.

Almost as if a divine joke, this week it got worse.

On Monday, when I walked into the office I found that the server that houses a third of the websites we manage was hacked. On Wednesday our phone service went down. The week before was nothing compared to this week.

All the problems were out of my control, but things that very much control our business -- and our client's businesses.

We have two choices in business: allow outside influences to control us or do all we can with what we have to work with. Keeping your head in the sand isn't a choice.

Being reactive is good. Being proactive is better. Anticipating your competitor's next step can help you avoid being blind sided. Knowing what we ought to do and making the time to do it are two different things.

You could spend all your time fighting fires or you could set aside some time for preventing fires. Having a strong strategy is the best approach. As I like to say: "Strategic thinking is more productive than wishful thinking."

Today, I'm still dealing with the repercussions of this week's technology failures. But at least I feel I've got my head above water. You?

Takeaway: Who is in charge of your sales & marketing? You? Your customers? Your competition? Your technology? No one?

Tech-No: Marketing Technology Failure Planning...

You may have heard about Chase's online banking system crash this week. It affected millions of customers.

Technology failure briefly hobbled Sasso Marketing this week, too -- twice...

Fortunately, we only experienced limited downtime. But it felt like an eternity. And it made me begin to beef-up our technology failure plan.

One Monday, I was out of town and our DSL modem failed. We now have a back up.  This morning, our email hosting failed, generating dozens of bounce backs. Now we have back-up email accounts.

Marketing today is innately dependent on technology from the old-fashioned telephone and fax to email and ecommerce. One hiccup and operations can grind to a halt. 

That's why it's important to have a marketing technology back-up plan. 

Up until this week. large chunks of our plan were in my head. Now, I plan to put it on paper so we're ready to implement it at a moments notice.

For instance, if our phone system fails, calls forward to my iPhone. If I can't use the landline or cell phone, we have a Skype account. (If the DSL fails again, I grab my laptop, run to Starbucks and rely on their wifi and latte to keep me going). I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point. Planning is key.

By the way, my email is working again, I think.

Takeaway: What will you do if you technology fails? Are you ready for every possibility short of nuclear disaster (phones, fax, email, Internet, DSL, website, printer, desktop, laptop...)?