Bloggy Business Today

Advertising is not only applicable for big businesses. Even small businesses should recognize and appreciate the value of good, well-placed advertising in order to gain competitive advantage.

Most often, small businessmen concentrate their efforts in the traditional way of selling their products and services without worrying themselves on how their products would sell from the customers’ counters or shelves. Even the sales people do not know how the products would eventually reach the hands of end users.

Since products sold by small businessmen are just the same as that of competitors, it is important for their company to highlight a distinctive element about their products or services, then make that unique features or difference known to the public. It is in this situation that advertising would play an important role.

To some extent, there are failures encountered by small businesses when they tried to advertise their products or services. Their failures were the result of the following misunderstanding or misconceptions about the good effects of advertising.

1. First, many neglect to research the available media or make a thorough market analysis, and consequently spent their money in the wrong choice of promotional and sales activities.
2. Second, many business owners opted to economize expenses by utilizing in-house artworks usually done by themselves which does not relate the right message to encourage customers to buy.

For all the efforts exerted to be effective, small business owners need to fully understand what advertising can accomplish. They need professional help from people experienced in advertising.

It is advisable to employ the services of small but creative advertising entities to assist in the formation of advertising strategies and materials to be used for this purpose.

Advertising plays an important factor to assist the product and sales force towards the success of the business.

Whatever product is sold, there is objection every salesperson is certain to encounter from time to time, the price of the product.

How to cope with the challenge can make a great deal of difference in the volume of products sold and more importantly, the profitability of the business.

There are guidelines or tips designed as to how to meet price resistance head –on and come up winning the sales.

• Believe that the price of the product is right. Apart from selling oneself first, a salesperson must totally believe and be convinced that the product being sold is outstanding and one of the best in the industry..
• Make sure the buyer’s real objection is price. The buyer might be citing high price as a disguise to some other objections which the salesperson failed to highlight in his presentation. This could mean not being able to explain the major features and benefits of the products.
• Sell the product and some add-ons. Do not sell the product alone but everything that goes with it i.e. company support and services.
• Highlight the dangers of false economy. The attraction of supposedly low-cost products could be more costly when the product bought is of inferior quality that would need untimely replacement.
• Sell more aggressively during uncertain times. Slump periods offer the salesperson special opportunities that don’t exist at other time of year. When the business is slow, there is more time to prepare for presentation and tailor it to the customer’s special concerns and needs.

The salesperson who combats resistance most effectively is the one who will sell more successfully.

What could be more pleasing than having children who after graduating from college that instead of choosing a career in organizations have decided to pursue and take over the management of their family owned business.

Having or keeping a family business is gratifying but encouraging children in handling over the business management is seldom an assurance that they will take it positively. This is largely because an entrepreneur unconsciously gives the children a negative impression about the business. A parent entrepreneur is often someone who is preoccupied with work, often spends long hours, day and night and weekends, always concern with office tasks. And more often than not, exhibits occasional irritations or outburst due to frustration that accompanies responsibilities in the business.

By the time the children become teenagers, they consider their parent’s frequent absences in their home, long hours of work, and inability to find relaxation creating a complex environment for them to live with. Because of this, there are children who do not want to have any part of the family business.

Should the parent want the children become part of the family business, they have to be involved in their early age. A gradual introduction of the business to the children and the future benefits that would be derived from the business will help them imbibe the positive aspects of it.

Describe to the children the positive and the negative sides of the business but assure them the challenges and satisfaction they can derive from the business in terms of profits and good life and they will surely consider joining.

To a certain extent, a number of sales people have the tendency to be complacent to their jobs brought about by varied reasons i.e. too long in the position, not promotable, absenteeism, tardiness, etc. Not all can be motivated despite the company’s effort through their superiors.

When this situation happens, as superiors, it is better to give-up on the individuals than to be blamed later on.

There are distinct types of salespeople who resist motivation and all are incurable:

• Those with limited field of interest. A salesperson may like meeting with customers, but usually reluctant to do daily, weekly field reports. No matter what effort impressed and required from this individual in order to increase productivity in the low-interest areas of the job will encounter difficulty.
• Low-performing individuals. These are people who do only the minimum amount of work necessary to keep their jobs signaling that they don’t care much about work. Most likely they have other plans or interest outside work and just put in their time and collect their paychecks. Don’t expect them to do any better.
• The inhibitors. These are the people with inhibited feelings and do not care about their work anymore. Psychology won’t work on them because no one can ever find the right button to press.
• Those that are on the firing line. If a highly unproductive salesperson fails to respond to warnings of termination, stop wasting time. It’s about time to look for a better replacement.

There are people who are fortunate to finish their college degree and blessed with intelligence to succeed but never did, unfortunately. They are usually the kind of people who get trapped in their self-defeating attitudes and behavior. These traps are:

Illusionistic thought. People constantly lying to themselves become candidates of being unsuccessful. For instance, people who choose teaching as a career won’t make them rich though it’s a noble profession. It can only give them fulfillment but not financial security.

Not productive. A person can only earn an income by being productive and earn more through hard work. Unsuccessful people spend their whole life evading the truth about self-development and hard works are the important elements to succeed in life. One must acquire a useful skill and be able to do something productive in order to earn a living.

Have rude manners. Unsuccessful people do not regard the value of time, gratefulness and humility. Example are not showing on time for an appointment, failure to express gratitude for receiving gifts whether it be material or immaterial, or asking apology for any misdeed.

Dress-up inappropriately. Unsuccessful people habitually dress-up inappropriately whereas successful people usually dress-up with fashion and appropriately according to occasion.

Possess unpleasant attitude. Unsuccessful people have discouraging outlook in life. They lack self-confidence and have the tendency to infect people around of their depression and hopelessness without realizing they are advertising themselves as losers.

They are argumentative. Unsuccessful people like to argue just for the sake of arguments. They think that friends and colleagues will be impressed with how smart, or clever they are when they initiate the debate.

Do not set priority. Unsuccessful people cannot set priorities. They do not realize that it’s not a sacrifice to give up things of lesser importance for those things of greater importance.

Successful people do the opposite.