Knowledge is power and today all organizations across a cross-section of industry, needs to begin asking tough questions about advertising, sales strategies and customer conversions. It is increasingly important to understand who the customer is, where the customer comes from, and why the customer has made the decision that he/she has made. While metrics collection and analysis is critical to the decision making process, it will be strategic relationship building activities that will increase the bottom line.
I believe that the days of waiting for the sale to come through your door are gone. A sales team that relies on its website, listing service or print advertising to generate growth this year, will fall drastically short of sales projections at the end of the budget year.
For years now, the value of a high quality website has proven to be unmatched. Studies show that today's consumer seek's out information via the internet, opposed to more traditional methods of information gathering. The unique power of a variety of website tools, allows organizaitons to not only inform customers and potential customers, but to engage and gain knowledge about visitors. Website tracking and analytics programs have streamlined the task of information gathering, and created an environment in which customers can interact with service providers, on the spot. Visitors to websites are no longer a data point in the metrics collection process. Now the visitor becomes a potential customer as the captured information provides the savvy sales staff with contact information, location and key interests in your service offerings, all without ever filling in a form or submitting an email.
Let me give you an example. At Tompkins Event Consultants, our staff is able to see, in real time, visitors to our website. We know where they are visiting from, how they arrived, and what pages they are looking at. IN REAL TIME. But that's not all. We know who they are, and we are able to interact with them as long as they are on our website. IN REAL TIME. And we provide website visitors the option to engage our sales staff at any time during their visit on our website: IN REAL TIME.
The goal of the real time interaction is not simply to land a sale on the spot. Instead it provides us an opportunity for engagement with the customer, to address the needs of the customer, and to begin the relationship building process. We have chosen to accept responsibility for opening the lines of communication once visitors have expressed an interest in our services, by visiting our website.
The benefits to you and your customer are numerous, but the key take-away for a customer is that you have provided them the opportunity to unload the burden of their information gathering process to you.
I welcome you to visit our website, to experience the engagement process, from a customer's perspective. www.tompkinseventconsultants.com
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
3 Keys to Success In 2009
Recently I asked several event professionals what they perceived to be the key threats to their business in 2009. Overwhelmingly, the responses I received focused on the economy.
"The economic downturn"
"Customer's budget cuts"
"Economy!"
Sound familiar?
My perspective is somewhat different.
In 2009, the greatest threat to the success of your business, is you. Let me
repeat that.
The greatest threat to your business in 2009, will be you.
Are you still with me?
While 2009 will present every entrepreneur, corporation, non-profit organization with a new set of budgetary challenges, unlike any we have seen before, it will also present us with the opportunity to recreate our organizations into incredible success stories that will be envied by the competition.
Before we can proceed, we must have agree on a couple of items. First, we need to agree that you are ultimately responsible for the success and failure of the business. Second, we need to agree that your business has room for improvement and in order to do better, you must improve the way you have been doing business. Change can be hard and painful, but ultimately, when you come out on the other side, you will be in a better position. Finally, your competition is seeking solutions that will change the way they do business, and they will change. If you don't, you will ultimately lose out to your competition.
There is a great TV show on Fox called "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares." The premise is simple. Chef Gordon Ramsey is called in to fix a failing restaurant, within a week. If you haven't seen it, watch it. Chef Ramsey follows 3 Keys to Success (although he never formally spells them out) in his effort to turnaround the failing establishment.
Keys to Success
Simple enough?
Here's what it all comes down to.
Bad processes cost you money in two ways. They negatively impact the way you service your existing customers and limit your organization's ability to build capacity (take on new customers).
Frontline staff and middle management have to be trained and retrained on your operation. They are your keys to success with your customers. Sales staff need to be trained to work proactively prior to the contract signing. By working with the customer in advance, sales staff can mitigate many of the complicating factors, or last minute requests, that pull tactical staff off of other important functions.
New markets in 2009 will abound. Your customers are probably struggling with budget challenges of their own. So is everyone else. Markets that may have been previously unavailable to you, because of needs and requirements, in 2009 have become available. AIG will no longer be conducting excessively expensive sales meetings and corporate retreats. They will still need to hold meetings, but instead of going to 5-star resorts, they will be looking for costeffective, creative solutions that will help to meet their strategic goals and organizational needs.
In 2009, survival will be the tact most organizations choose to take, with economic
consultants recommending cutting budgets across the board by 10%, which is advice well-heeded. However, cutting is not the final answer. Operational improvement with the goal of creating a more cost-effective, efficient business, is the right approach to a surviving, and even growing in 2009.
Eric Tompkins
Tompkins Event Consultants
"The economic downturn"
"Customer's budget cuts"
"Economy!"
Sound familiar?
My perspective is somewhat different.
In 2009, the greatest threat to the success of your business, is you. Let me
repeat that.
The greatest threat to your business in 2009, will be you.
Are you still with me?
While 2009 will present every entrepreneur, corporation, non-profit organization with a new set of budgetary challenges, unlike any we have seen before, it will also present us with the opportunity to recreate our organizations into incredible success stories that will be envied by the competition.
Before we can proceed, we must have agree on a couple of items. First, we need to agree that you are ultimately responsible for the success and failure of the business. Second, we need to agree that your business has room for improvement and in order to do better, you must improve the way you have been doing business. Change can be hard and painful, but ultimately, when you come out on the other side, you will be in a better position. Finally, your competition is seeking solutions that will change the way they do business, and they will change. If you don't, you will ultimately lose out to your competition.
There is a great TV show on Fox called "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares." The premise is simple. Chef Gordon Ramsey is called in to fix a failing restaurant, within a week. If you haven't seen it, watch it. Chef Ramsey follows 3 Keys to Success (although he never formally spells them out) in his effort to turnaround the failing establishment.
Keys to Success
- Eliminate bad and duplicative processes
- Train/Retrain middle management and frontline staff
- Indentify and actively engage new markets
Simple enough?
Here's what it all comes down to.
Bad processes cost you money in two ways. They negatively impact the way you service your existing customers and limit your organization's ability to build capacity (take on new customers).
Frontline staff and middle management have to be trained and retrained on your operation. They are your keys to success with your customers. Sales staff need to be trained to work proactively prior to the contract signing. By working with the customer in advance, sales staff can mitigate many of the complicating factors, or last minute requests, that pull tactical staff off of other important functions.
New markets in 2009 will abound. Your customers are probably struggling with budget challenges of their own. So is everyone else. Markets that may have been previously unavailable to you, because of needs and requirements, in 2009 have become available. AIG will no longer be conducting excessively expensive sales meetings and corporate retreats. They will still need to hold meetings, but instead of going to 5-star resorts, they will be looking for costeffective, creative solutions that will help to meet their strategic goals and organizational needs.
In 2009, survival will be the tact most organizations choose to take, with economic
consultants recommending cutting budgets across the board by 10%, which is advice well-heeded. However, cutting is not the final answer. Operational improvement with the goal of creating a more cost-effective, efficient business, is the right approach to a surviving, and even growing in 2009.
Eric Tompkins
Tompkins Event Consultants
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