Do You Run a Small Business in Canada or USA?
Visit Beautiful Victoria BC to Attend a Marketing Seminar or Sales Training Workshop
Based in Victoria BC with associate offices in Windsor Ontario Canada and Detroit Michigan USA, our marketing
workshops, business consulting seminars and sales training
courses are customized to the needs, goals, and strategies of our clients,
who are located across North America. Often, the process of
customization includes some or all of the following activities:
Internal Assessment of Your USA or Canada Sales Training and Marketing Process
We design and conduct face-to-face and/or
telephone interviews with executive managers, sales team leaders sales representatives within the client organization to gain an
understanding of:
 The organization's strategic marketing goals
Sales
persons' strengths & weaknesses
Specific sales training needs and expectations
Key marketing and sales performance challenges and obstacles
What is or is not working well currently in your sales and marketing strategy.
Customer Research
To
get a grip on who your customers are and what they want, Strategic Alliance conducts research
to learn about your customers'
expectations and perceptions of value. In other words, we find out what they expect and what they care about when it comes to investing in the types of products or services that you are representing.
A Quick But Powerful Marketing Lesson From The Shoe Industry
The research process described above could be described as identifying your market. After all, people invest in what they value. For example, some people pay as much as $14,000 for a pair of Manolo Blahnik alligator boots. Would any of your customers pay that much for footwear? Do you know for sure?
In footwear, fashion and everything else, designer names command premiums. Perhaps your sales team is underestimating your prospects and customers (and under-selling them). This happens frequently because your sales people are judging the purchase price based on their own set of values rather than on each customer's own values.
Let's reconsider those expensive shoes again for a minute. (STOP! You just read right by that comment. Who says $14,000 is expensive? How much would Cinderella's glass slipper be worth? It depends on what someone believes it's worth -- a kingdom, perhaps).
 THE CINDERELLA SLIPPERS: The world's most expensive pair of women's shoes costs $2 million.
The unique 4½-inch stiletto sandals are studded with 565 platinum-set Kwiat diamonds (one big 5-carat stone and 55 carats of clear diamonds).
The designer of the shoes, Stuart Weitzman, refers to them as The Cinderella Slippers. They were worn by singer Alison Krauss a Best Song nominee at the 2004 Oscars ceremony.
The Stuart Weitzman-designed $2-million shoes are on display in Beverly Hills, California.
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
So do not underestimate the puchasing power of your customers. They will buy based on their own set of values. If money is no object for them, then don't let it be an object for you, or an objection.
Next time you find yourself prejudging your customers, look at their shoes. One woman may find $150 too expensive for a pair of Sears slingbacks, but to her sister it makes sense to pay $1,000 for a pair of Manolos if she's "investing" $7,000 or $8,000 in a Chanel suit. She wants shoes that match in look and quality, and the $1,000 shoes don't increase the total cost of the outfit by that much. Those are her values. If you were to sell her a pair of $180 shoes from Sears, she would feel under-dressed and very dis-satisfied, and you don't want customers who are not satisfied, now do you?
OK, Let's Get back to Our Customer Research Process
Next we determine the corrective action needed to produce superior sales training
and marketing performance for your sales organization (even if you happen to be a one-person sales organization). We conduct this sales training and
marketing research through surveys, focus groups and direct
interviews with decision makers to obtain qualitative data that
serves as input into sales training design and marketing development.
Marketing and Sales Training for Management -- Sales Coaching
and Marketing Consulting
We recognize that any great sales training program sees sales
management as the key to successful implementation of any strategic
plan. In developing our sales training recommendations, we work
with team managers to build consensus around the measures for
success and the behaviors and activities essential to meeting
their sales goals.
Our focus is on building a consistent sales process across the organization
and a consistent sales management process to reinforce and sustain
it.
US and Canada Sales Training Design and Marketing Plan Development
The Strategic Alliance sales training models and methodologies are
based on continuous research into the characteristics of superior
performers and the expectations and perceptions of customers.
In all cases, our sales training and marketing solutions are
designed to differentiate you from your competitors and to position
you to implement a superior marketing strategy from which you
can receive increased revenue growth and profitability.
Why not get in touch with us? Call me personally - John Tobin at 250-208-7058 or drop me an email at
. You can check out my shoes while sharing some ideas of what you're trying to acheive in your marketing initiatives and sales strategy. We'll see if we can come up with a sales training or marketing approach that will fit your needs, or perhaps we can recommend a another resource for you.
See overview of our Sales Training Programs or check our Sales and Marketing Workshops. |
