Asian Selling Game

Using Twitter for Sales Prospecting

2009-03-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

Sales people are beginning to exploit Twitter as a means to find and build relationships with potential customers. In the beginning is was rather difficult as it was difficult to identify the type of people you want.

Many new tools have since been developed as outlined Lee Ogden in his "12 ways to find Business and Brands on Twitter"

More about how small and large branded companies are using Twitter to drive traffic and build customers may be found at this weeks Hopeful Al Direct Marketing Blurb

Appealing to Different Values

2009-01-30T00:34:00.000-08:00

I do not know if this is a phenomenon that exist on the internet, and in internet marketing environments. Looking through the Sales Copies for many internet marketing offers mainly targeted at US and European audiences, what comes across strongly as appeals are:

1. Laze on the beach, drink in hand and a beautiful girl by your side while your business income cascading in like a waterfall, AutoPilot.

2. This person is tricky, foxy, a maverick, join him and make quick money.

3. Here are some Cheats...use them get rich.

These values have certainly attracted a fairly large group of young Asian Internet Marketing aspirants, but I do bot think they have a universal appeal in Asia, where work ethic, and diligence is still strongly admired qualities.

Up to now, successful consultants and coaches in internet marketing are those who dress professionally and display strong sense of honesty, diligence and discipline.

I tested these values amongst my SMB customers, many in mechanistic engineering, hardware and manufacturing and they totally reject them as being foolish values. Even the Banks thinks of these as "fool's gold"

Whether these Asia values will ultimately be eroded remains to be seen.

Learning to Build Killer Mini Sites

2008-10-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of talk online about how important it is to set up mini sites in order to create automated income streams on the Internet. These are small, 1 or 2 page websites that make you money even while you are sleeping, and they're VERY simple to create (once you know how).

The problem, however, is that even after you learn HOW to create a killer mini site, you still have to figure out how to actually make money with it.

My friend Michael Rasmussen has just created an incredible set of FREE videos called 'Mini Site Profits Exposed'. As soon as I finished watching them, I knew I had to blog about them FAST!

These videos (which are available to watch instantly right on the web) will walk you through how to create a killer mini site from the ground up. Michael leaves
nothing out.

The second half of the course shows you how to start making money with your mini site. These videos will give you the most complete education you could ever need for building your own mini site empire.

These Videos are so good that I wondered why Mike was giving it away. He explained
he figures that the best way to prove himself, and to show the quality he is capable of, is to GIVE you one of his best products.

That way, you'll be happy to do business with him in the future.

I wish all marketers had that same philosophy. Most people try to figure out ways to take money from their prospects. Michael is one of the rare few who believes in giving lots of value up front BEFORE he ever asks you to spend any money with him.

To register for the free product, go to Mike's Main Site or see my Product Review at my website

The Cold Call Culture

2007-05-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

This post is stimulated by messages posted in the Sales Practice Forum lamenting about Cold Calls and ab recent article I came across in HBRs Managing Diversity by, David A Thomas and Robin J Ely. "Making Differences Matter…A New paradigm for managing diversity" it says

The leadership must understand that a diverse workforce will embody different perspective and approaches to work, and must truly value variety of opinion and insight. We know of a financial services company that once assumed that the only successful sales model was one that utilized aggressive , rapid-fire cold calls. (Indeed, it incentive system rewarded salespeople in lare part for the number of calls made.) An internal review of the company’s diversity initiatives, however, showed that the company’s first ad third most profitable employees were women who were most likely to use a sales technique based on slow but sure building of relationships. The company’s top management has now made the link between different identity groups and different approaches to how work is done to get the best results.

It makes me understand that sales practices are not only affected by cultural differences between countries...they are perhaps more influenced by cultures within companies.

Also see article about the Fuller Brush Culture.

The Key Difference Between Networking and Selling

2007-05-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

Having a good network is a vital resource for any business person. For many people networking is their primary source of business. Yet most people get very little benefit from their efforts. They attend networking events and collect dozens of business cards from people who are not qualified prospects. This feels like progress, perhaps it even feels like work, but unless these contacts are likely to become prospects it's pretty much a waste of time.

As a result, this kind of networking yields modest results and is usually cover for a broken or non-existent marketing process.

To network effectively you have to fish where the fish are. Where are you likely to meet prospects for your business? What do you want them to do? Once you know the answer to these questions focus your attention on relevant venues where you can find people who can move you toward your goals.

When you find people you want to do business with, you had better not network with them, this is the time to start selling.

Networking is far more passive and does not generally put bread on the table. Selling is understanding peoples problems and offering them a solution that they will pay you for.

If you confuse networking with selling you will almost certainly end up earning less than you should.

Source: Submit Articles at ArticlesBase.com

About the Author:
Michael Hepworth is the StreetSmart Marketer and a Toronto strategic marketing consultant , you can receive his free marketing advice at http://www.streetsmartmarketer.com/.

Sales and Consumer Created Ads

2007-02-13T17:26:00.000-08:00

Jonah Bloom's Don't Let Consumer-Created Ads Drown Out the Larger Conversation in the Ad Age February 12, 2007, is a timely reminder. Whilst acknowledging the contributions of this media, quoting many senior marketing executives, and Bob Garfield's Bob Garfield's "Listenomics" essay and his blog, he says

" But just as TV commercials are often mistaken for the sum-total output of a marketing department, so consumer-generated content is in danger of obscuring the bigger story here, which is that we're entering a new ad era -- the conversational marketing age."

Consumer created advertising is not new. In the past it was called "word of mouth" advertising, then "referral", "viral" and "buzz" marketing. Its the village drums that still works powerfully in the country sides of Asia. The only difference is that internet savvy consumers are now empowered (often provided with) new tools for spreading his opinion.

But the same rule of affinity will applies.... people will be more influence to those who they know well by reputation or closeness of relationships....they are not likely to believe everything they hear. They do have enough experience with "word of mouth" information and here say. Hence there is a lot of noise out there, possibly creating more doubts and incredibility than positive effects.

There will of course be a portion of the mass market that is gullible and may still believe that whatever appear on the mass media, (ie NEWS) is more credible ...or worth checking out, than what they hear through "word of mouth"

That of course is the old advertising game...presenting your message in way that is interesting, believable and response generating.

Cross Cultural Communications

2007-02-08T08:45:00.000-08:00

This essay on CROSS-CULTURAL/INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION suggests that...
" Business is not conducted in an identical fashion from culture to culture. Consequently, business relations are enhanced when managerial, sales, and technical personnel are trained to be aware of areas likely to create communication difficulties and conflict across cultures."
The article goes on to discuss ethnocentrism and the various factors that affect cross cultural business communication.

Cultural Impact on EU Sales Management

2007-02-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

European nations are attempting to standardize business across the community despite deep cultural divides. CULTURAL IMPACT ON EUROPEAN STAFFING DECISIONS IN SALES MANAGEMENT (PDF) presents results from a research conducted on the captioned issue.

"Our study set out to examine the influence of regional culture on sales force recruitment and promotion decisions. We believe this is an important and under-researched area within the sales force and human resource management area. It will doubtlessly become a more important issue as sales forces are deployed cross nationally or globally with the implementation of various free trade agreements (e.g., NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCUR, and the EEC) and in Europe, the common money. Researchers have called on sales organizations to focus more on their staffing policies because they are critical to long-term success (e.g., Churchill et al. 2000, p. 354). We hope our research contributes to the field by providing empirical support for differences between countries in terms of recruitment and promotion decisions. Additionally we believe this study offers insight into the type of criteria used by managers to make staffing decisions."

The cultural divide between Asia and Western Culture where much of the Best Practices in Sales and Sales management emanates is of course deeper than between EU nations. The findings from this study would certainly suggest that for Western best practices to work effectively in Asia, it will have to be applied with great flexibility.

Empowerment, Guanxi Style

2007-02-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

Empowerment,Guanxi Style from Rat Droppings: Asian Business Culture and Gossip, Chao Phraya Rat's personal satirical review on Asian business, marketing, culture, politics, and trends presents a enlightening view on the Asian view of Guanxi (Relationship) that pervades all aspects of business including sales.

"Call it cultural or society practices in Asia, guanxi is person specific i.e. the relationship of trust between two persons are paramount because this relationship cannot be transferred. Before you are empowered, there must be an established trust which is visible, so much so, the visibility is sometimes equated to being loyal to the person giving the power."

Great reminders about communicating digitally

2007-02-02T06:09:00.000-08:00

Here’s a compilation of 10 silly and stupid ways by Guy Kawsaki on how companies are hindering adoption of their products and services.

Truly useful article as we make these mistakes all the time. In Asia, many, like me, we don't know. There's quite a few things in Guy's article that I have to find out more about. The worse mistakes are those that we make out of carelessness or "can't be botheredness"

Clever but Unethical Sales Practices

2007-02-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

There is just still too much of this in Singapore today. I liken this situation to software piracy and recent comments by Tarun Sawney, director of the BSA’s antipiracy activities in Asia-Pacific, reported by CSO. (26 Oct 2006).

" Do you see Singapore as a first-world nation or a typical Asian nation"

It is largely a cultural issue, and yesterday I had a bad taste of it when buying a Chinese language Software.

Having gone through that experience, I must add that aside from protecting businesses from IP losses, consumers too have to be protected against unscrupulous IP creators...those that can make their stuff looks good in demos, or on paper, but cannot assure performance or service.

Of course one could argue. " let the buyers beware" ...but there must be a limit to this.

Most first world countries have cooling off periods for purchases...one can easily return products that prove unsatisfactory... definitely not so everywhere. Take my case for example,

I purchased a Chinese Word Processing software(or what I told in was), called “Chinese Doctor”, from the famed Sim Lim Square in Singapore. The label said that the software had could create a Chinese document by inputting text whether in English or pinyin which suited me fine. There was also a good translator in case I receive a Chinese Document. ..or needed to input in English. The demo was good so I purchased it to explore it further...knowing its hard to see all at a demo.

To cut the story short, things did not go so well when I tried using it at home.... and of course I was refused a refund when I tried returning the stuff. "Many people have used this, its even loaded on all the computers here, so its the fault of your system not ours"

When I send the package to for evaluation by someone who knew better, I found that:

1. The Chinese Doctor was merely a writing program, not as claimed on the packaging, literature and sales presentation. You could use your mouse or mouse pad to write a Chinese word and it appear on your document(Clever) But not useful for me as I have explained that I could not write Chinese.

2. He demonstrated inputting PinYIN which I needed but was relying on the Microsoft’s build-in capability without telling me this(Clever and deceitful).

3. Even worse he demonstrated a number of other inputting features that I needed....by making use of the existing word processing program in my computer (Clever and totally deceitful)

4. The dictionary was a standard shelf software called TranStar which was not integrated at all with the Doctor. Even worse I think the copy is a fake, as I saw a piece of the original which looked quite different.(criminal in most cases, but I guess being a Chinese software, its not)

What I went through was not only deceitful demo with the sole objective to sell, without any regard to customers real needs or for any ethical or moral considerations.... the facts provided on the packaging were all lies and untruths.

And I dare say..."UNFORTUNATELY, this happen quite a bit out in Asia"

Gaining visibility in your e-selling game

2007-01-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

Small and medium size companies in Asia can benefit immensely by learning to connect themselves to the international business community, to promote and sell their products and services. Companies around the world are looking at Asia as a both as a supplier source and a market.

Starting a Blog is a simple way to get e-connected to the right audience.

Once you start exploring blogging, you will come to know that there are many companies out there dedicated to connecting people. Technorati is certainly one of them.

See Technorati Profile

Effective E-mail Sales Copies

2007-01-29T04:10:00.000-08:00

I happen to received this email...which was I thought had a strong intro for "high-inertia"people like me who probably form at least 80% of all audiences.

However I felt that the writer failed to develop on this strong intro.

Having a powerful start...one should tone down and sound really logical and rational...don't pile the rhetoric on more rhetoric. Somewhere it must start sounding sincere and real.
Links are introduced too early. When you ask someone to open a link, it's a call for action.

In a world where people fear being spammed or virus infected a higher level of trust should be first established. Check out this yourself and let us and let us have your comments.

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"WHY BLOG ?"

2007-01-23T20:25:00.000-08:00

A number of friends actually called me and emailed me to ask, rather than post a comment....and what are all those things like "joining the group". They like me are new to Blogging... so I have asked my friend Steve Seah to help me draft this explanation.

Blogs...

A BLOG is a web platform for sharing ideas and actually network... like in a real live seminar or net-working sessions. But you can do it from you desktop...beats having to fight with the traffic, park you car to get to a venue. (the setback- you have to get the snacks from you own fridge)

Some people share not only their opinions but their personal profiles, so you can actually get to know them.

With sales being so important of all of us... we are selling one thing or other whether we know it or not.... I thought it would be an interesting topic for sharing. To me sales is any act of influencing people to share our beliefs, accept our recommendations...an it does not matter how its done... face to face, through the phone, through ads, PR...digitally or otherwise.

As someone hosting a blog, we are like an organizer for the networking session. We do it for the benefit of all.

So feel comfortable to click the comment button to says something...

Groups

A Group is a web facility for collaboration that existed a long time before Blogs were invented. Many business people including I used this in our working lives for organizing our committee meetings. I put up this group as I thought some of us may be more familiar with this for group communication.

The Group facility requires that you to log-in, and provide some details of yourself... where in a blog its optional. It however allows you to post you own discussion topics rather than having to us comment on those posted by me.

Getting through to each other is the main objective

Whether you prefer blogging the the Group Discussion , the important thing is getting through to each other to share ideas... and you will get a personal response from me.

Song and Dance

2007-01-19T17:47:00.000-08:00

"Song and dance" as the American like to call it seems like a universal sales practice. I have seen it in quite a few countries.... the entertainment is different but principles are the same:

make noise attract attention
gather crowd, as crowd gather crowd
entertain, build relations while entertaining
promote product in entertaining manner
Make offer, persuade people to buy
Break natural inertia by planting supporters, dummy buyers amongst the crowd.

In Singapore today, you see these as sophisticated shows with elaborate stages, sound and lighting systems, video walls, story tellers, dance troupes at shopping malls, and out on the streets in the Bugis area, China town or even heartland market places the old "snake-oil vendor" still flourishes replete with his martial arts demonstrations and practices sales pitch.

Added to these are the wide array of in and outdoor product demos, magic knives, cleaning cloth, super vacuums, beauty spas..... and what about all those short skirted ladies out there promoting mobile phones and even serious financial service products.

Such events outdoor were in the past not permitted by law in Singapore. Lewd displays and those that provoke public complaints would still be swiftly terminated. Outdoor events tend to be more aculturized... often using local dialects, referring to common habits of local people, their problems, TV shows, etc.

There is certainly much we can learn from these street events.... how to incorporate the entertainment value and involvement into our everyday selling process.

Asian Selling Game???

2007-01-14T19:02:00.000-08:00

It may seem odd that someone should raise such an issue at this stage where the world is globalizing rapidly with western technology, skills and culture seemingly sweeping through the world and gaining dominance especially in the domains of business and organizational management.

Japan made important contributions in the area of Quality and Lean Management or what is popularly known as the Toyota Management System.... most of which has since been subject to western interpretation and acculturisation.

The Nordic School of Management gained some prominence in presenting its empirical findings that businesses were using a wide range of relationship strategies to improved their market performance and sales but this too went in the same direction as the Japanese.

In my frequent visits to China in recent years, I am beginning to discern a some "reinterpretation" of Western sales techniques. Time will tell whether these would become distinct trends or are mere temporal customisations.

Selling to the Affluent...

The argument that as people become more affluent they also tend to become more global ... learn to adopt and enjoy what is seemingly best internationally, i.e. develop global culture, attitude, taste...is certainly persuasive. Hence the assertion that there is little difference selling to an up-marketing globally oriented Chinese or Asian vs is western counterparts.

In this respect, it is interesting to note such "global persons" has in the last decade certainly become more Asian... more aware and appreciative of Asian ways and culture. Western sales literature is already focusing more on the positive effects of "relationships" where they use to viewed it mainly as nepotism, cronynism, favouritism. Asian ways have moderated "western thinking" , but once again, western literature is increasingly being filled with contributions by western writers on how to be Chinese, speak Chinese, cook Chinese and practice the Sun Tsu's Art of War!

Selling to the masses....

Will there be distinctive Asian ways to sell to the mass market, or will the whole world be like be like the proverbial "Shakespearean crowd" swayed by mob sentiments triggered by the mass media? Those that have seen how people in a "sophisticated and educated" society like in the USA behave on Black Friday will bear witness to the power of the media in shaping mass consumer behaviour.

General Principles vs Practice

Some principles and precepts like those relating to gaining AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) are probably to Sales what the 10 commandments are to Christainity... they identify the universal and indisputable rules. Yet in matters of application it may differ across cultures.

"Thou shall not kill" may be reinforced through capital punishments in some jurisdications whilst not in others. In the west passion is often viewed as a stronger mitigating factor for cmurder than in Asia where emotional control are upheld as a basic requirement of good citizenship.

Objectives and Scope

It is thus my hope that this blog will stir many comments that will provide examples of these differences in practices and applications, if not in general principles and precepts.

Qualifications

My main concern is that this blog may be bogged down by difficulties in classifying a practice as being Western or Asian. Take myself as an example, I have brought up in what I would consider a home environment that is largely Confucian, educated in Christain schools, married into a Christain environment... and worked in sales and marketing in multinational companies for the better part of my 30 years working career. I would seriously doubt if a "mad-chinaman", like myself could truly make such distinctions.

In a recent workshop I presented a sales practice which I found unique in the city of Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. To both my astonishment and delight, a somewhat elderly participant hailing from Finland interjected with the claim that he remembered many business in his hometown adopting such practices in teenage days. Deeper discussions revealed that many situation factors that existed in Finland then resembled those in present day Hohhot.

Open, unconstrained discussions

So do not be too constrained and caught up with verifying or arguing whether an observed practice is western or Asian in origin, or be partisan in any way. Any observed sales practices that seems unusual to you would certainly deserve mention on this blog. Hopefully it will trigger a response like that from the Finnish gentlemen.

The ultimate goal is to learn

It is through such discussions that we will truly learn to properly adapt sales principles and practices to different environments to optimise sales productivity. Whether the world will eventually evolve a multicultural set of sales and marketing principles will indeed be interesting discussion but probably less useful than an appreciation of how different sales principles practices amy work best under different situations.