Business Model Analogy

Ray Leone

Always try to use your prospect’s business model to explain the value of your product/service.  If I am talking to a prospect that is a Six Sigma company and they are trying to get my price down, I use the value triangle and compare it to the Six Sigma criteria.

If they are number one in their industry and I am number one in mine, but they are considering a small local provider, then I ask them, “Why are you number one?”  The answer is always that they are the best at what they do. Then I say, “That is exactly why we are number one.”

If they have low priced competitors that buy business I ask, “Why does the competition feel the need to lower their price when they are competing with you?”  The answer always is, “Because we are better and the only way they can sell against us is to lower their price.” Then I say “Why do you think my competitors feel the need to lower their price to compete with me?” I also add “ No one knows the value of their product more than the company selling it. They believe that the price they charge reflects the value of their solution/product.”

You got it! Now use it.

Till next time

Ray

Email us at tony@salesfunnel.com

A few more comments from past attendees of Sales Funnel programs:

The chamber always has great speakers, but Ray is the best I’ve ever seen. – L Tholen- Charlotte Chamber

Not one wasted moment – D Whalen – Lucent

The Million Dollar Round Table should hear this. -Wardlaw Life

PPS – Feel free to forward this to anyone that you feel would benefit.  Better yet, tell them to sign up for Ray’s Rules under free e-zine on my website www.salesfunnel.com.

DoIt Marketing

With all the buzz about “Social Media Marketing,” you can understand why I was intrigued when a fellow speaker, David Newman who promotes himself as a marketing coach, called with a pitch for his new venture, DoIt Marketing.  He had assembled a crack team of experts who, as I understood their promise, could improve my SEO and make my phone ring.

No stranger to social media, I’ve been teaching “Social Media as a Guerrilla Marketing Weapon” for years.  I just lack the bandwidth to manage it for myself.  So I made a few calls, and his references were for-the-most-part, positive.  After meeting for lunch, I was skeptical.

Then, one afternoon David called in a panic; “Can you cover a keynote for a group of financial planners, in Denver, at noon?  Tomorrow?”  The speaker he had booked for this event was grounded in D.C. by thunderstorms.  The fee was less than rack, but I agreed to help him out, delivered the speech, and the client was thrilled.

But then David didn’t want to pay the speaking fee.  Instead, he insisted we put it in my “bank” and use it (after deducting a 25% “bureau commission”) to fund his proposed social media campaign. And lucky for me, they had one slot open.

Instead of a check, I got a 10-page questionnaire, asking all about my books, my business, my clients, and the passwords to all of my social media accounts, website, and blog.

As instructed, I sent DoIt Marketing everything they asked for: market analysis, book manuscripts, articles, audios, videos, top-performing keywords, and passwords for my blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and other accounts.  I should have known better.

My understanding was that the DoIt Marketing team would take clips from my books and other material, and systematically post them all over the web: multiple daily Twitter tweets, multiple daily Facebook updates, article submissions, new LinkedIn groups, two blogs a week, and more.

I thought it was expensive: $1,500 just to “set it up” (never mind that all these profiles were already set up and optimized, with thousands of fans and followers.)  Add another $1,800/month to launch, with a minimum commitment of three months.  Just enough in my “bank” to cover the setup and two months in advance.

Maybe my expectations were unsually high, given my background as a Guerrilla Marketing author, but I felt disappointed right away. Like when they couldn’t spell my NAME correctly, let alone, “Guerrilla”.  The first (and only) blog they put up was a duplicate of one that had already been published.  They signed me up for five article hubs, two of which I was already writing for.  I believe I could get this level of work from a college intern! The only results I noticed was a dramatic increase in SPAM.

I sent David an e-mail with detailed feedback and branding standards, and agreed to give his team a chance to prove themselves once the campaign rolled out.  I should have known better.

I felt that the work was not only sloppy, but in some cases, downright inappropriate.   Most of the Facebook postings were dead-ends with no breadcrumbs.  One tweet that I felt was very inappropriate simply read, “24 Reasons Why Sales is Better than Sex.” And the last straw, a book review I hadn’t written, of a book by ANOTHER speaker, with a link back to HIS bookstore.  Sorry, but I thought I was paying DoIt Marketing to review MY books and drive traffic to MY website and MY bookstore, thank you.

So, I complained directly to the young woman assigned to my account, pointing out examples from specific posts that I felt were wanting.  Within minutes, I got a call from David Newman, not to apologize, but scolding me for being “abusive” and “impossible to please.” Deaf to my complaints, he threatened to just drop the whole project, in effect, chopping down the tree before it could bare fruit.

My response was, “In that case, I want a full refund.”

“That’s not even on the table.” Instead he sent a check for the unspent balance of $1,800.  He did NOT, however, keep his scheduled appointment for a reporting call,  send the promised written reports, or do any of the setup work for which I had already paid so dearly. When I repeated my demand for a full refund via e-mail, and threatened to take my story public, I got a letter from his lawyer threatening to sue for libel.  That’s certainly ONE way to discourage customer complaints.

The Lessons:

• Check references thoroughly.  Anything less than glowing isn’t good enough.
• Never agree to trade out.  Collect fees for your services, then pay as you go.
• Never pay in advance.  You’ll want to cut your losses quickly if they bugger it.
• Understand what social media can, and can’t do for your business. Don’t expect miracles.
• Exhaust more affordable resources like Craig’s List or elance.com before engaging a boutique firm.  Smart people are out there, and they’re hungry.
• Vet everything before it goes live.  It’s your good name at stake.
• Insist on visible, measure results, reported weekly, in writing; not double-talk.
• File reports on Ripoffreport.com,  ScamBook.com, and the Consumerist.com if you’ve been the victim of one of these scams.  I did.

Throwing $3,300 bucks away on useless marketing really hurt!   And I had to change all my passwords.   Social Media, managed correctly, can certainly boost your business.  But there are FAR too many vendors making wild claims that they can’t fulfill.

And when they ask you to give them “The Keys to the Kingdom,” just don’t.

If you would like to share your experience with David Newman or DoIt Marketing, I encourage you to comment on this post.  You may call me directly at 800-247-9145 with any questions.

This article is not intended to disparage or defame  David Newman or DoIt Marketing in any way, but solely to warn readers about the potential pitfalls of working with vendors in general, and  Social Media Marketing vendors in particular.  The contents of this article merely express my personal opinion and point of view on this topic.  Use the links to his website to make your own assessment.

Here’s a list of ten ways you can bring more value to your offering.  Find three that you can apply right now.

1. Quality

People will pay more for quality.  The Maytag repairman isn’t just lonely.  He’s old and lonely.  Show your prospect that the lifetime value of your offering is far superior to your competitors’.

2. Service

People will pay more for superior service.  Why do you think people pay twice as much for a suit at Nordstrom’s then they would at Men’s Wearhouse?  They value the service – expert tailoring, multiple fittings, free monogramming – and all this makes up for the additional money they will spend.

3. Authenticity

Authenticity means the real deal – the genuine article.  At the Louvre Museum in Paris, you can gaze upon what is perhaps the most famous work of art in the world: Leonardo Da Vinci’s portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, commonly known as the Mona Lisa.

For all the hype, it was quite a disappointment. The painting hangs alone in a large hall in dim light, cloistered behind thick plates of bullet-proof Lexan.  And it’s small; only 21 x 39 inches.  Mrs.Gherardini has not aged well over the past 500 years. The paint is cracked and the colors are smoky and faded.

However, scientists have analyzed the pigments and digitally recreated this masterpiece just as it would have looked standing wet on Da Vinci’s easel in 1506.  The reproduction is ascetically superior in every way, and you can buy the poster-sized print in the museum gift shop for only twenty Euros, while the original, of course, is considered priceless.

4. Stability

Company stability means a company that’s been in business since the landing at Plymouth Rock.  Do you tell the story about how your Grandfather came from the Olde Country and started the business with his brother and cousin in the back of their barn?  You share that history because people put a high value on stability and longevity in business.  No one wants to be a beta test.

5. Reliability

People are busy and when they find a vendor they can count on, they buy from them again and again. How do you demonstrate to your customer that you’re reliable?  Does someone answer the phone on a second ring? Do you show up for appointments exactly on time?  Everything you do (or don’t do) sends a message about your reliability.

6. Social or Ecological Values

Do you recycle? Do you use recycled paper in all your packaging and correspondence? Are you running alternative fuels in your fleet?  These issues have become more and more important in recent years.  Seventy-eight percent of consumers said they would pay $2,000 more for a car that gets 35 miles per gallon, even though that only makes economic sense if gasoline is in the range of $4.00 a gallon (that’s more than I pay for wine!).  Meanwhile, the Prius was voted Number One Most Ecologically Sensitive Product of the last decade.

People routinely pay hundreds, even thousands of dollars for a knick-knack at a silent auction raising money for a scout troop, church group, or political cause.  At this year’s Cigar PEG celebrity auction, the three-day elite speaker coaching package I donated raised $22,500.00 for the National Speakers Association Foundation.

7. Delivery

This is why you pay fifteen dollars for FedEx instead of 52 cents for first-class mail. People want the product in their hands immediately.  Whether it’s delivering a customized pen in less than the time promised, or completing their project a week ahead of schedule, people don’t just want what they paid for when it’s expected, but BEFORE it’s due.

8. Financing

Even Time Magazine, offers “Three easy payments of $9.95.”  So, when you have a good customer who’s shopping for terms, you can say, “Well, we can give you 2% net 30, or 90-days net. Take your pick.”  This also proves to the customer that you value them enough to be flexible on terms.

9. Local Sourcing

Eighty-two percent of people surveyed have consciously supported local or neighborhood businesses.  People like to be a part of a community, and will pay higher prices to support local vendors.  Need proof? Compare prices at your local farmer’s market with those at a big-box store.

There’s a two-pump garage and gas station in the tiny Colorado mountain town where we live called Carl’s Corner.  I’ve been buying gas from Carl for more than 20 years, and my wife is always giving me a hard time about it.  She says, “Why buy gas at Carl’s when we can get it cheaper at the Conoco in Boulder?”

“Because we need more than just gas,” I remind her.  “We need Carl.  We need him when we have a flat.  We need him when we have a dead battery.  We need him when we slide off the snowy road and get stuck in a drift.  We even need him when we run out of gas for the grill.  And if we don’t keep his garage open, then we won’t have a mechanic in the canyon at all.”

10.  Fun

Regardless of what someone is buying, or how much they pay, they want to have FUN and feel good about their purchase.  How can you add a fun factor so your buyers enjoy the experience and keep coming back?

You’ve seen this guerrilla tactic in action if you’ve ever bought fish at Seattle’s Pike Street Market.

What can you use from this list to justify your higher price?  Many of these are things that you’re ALREADY doing, but not taking the proper credit.  Make certain that you explain ALL the aspects of your product or service that makes you more valuable to your customer.  Focus on your uniqueness and what you bring to the table that your competitors are ignoring.

This is only part of a list of 31 Reasons Customers Will Pay More.  Watch the new seven-part video, “Guerrilla Tactics to Sell at Higher Prices,” at:  http://vimeo.com/user6769112/videos

Africa is like a whole other country, and it’s hard to find stuff.  The same could be said of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Every Professional speaker should take responsibility for their own comfort and equipment, and always be prepared for the inevitable catastrophe.

The Professional Speaker’s Gig bag should contain:

1. Your laptop computer
2. A dedicated power supply that stays in your bag.  (I recommend the universal Targus AC70U.)  Leave the factory one at your desk.   That way you’ll never make the mistake of forgetting to pack it. And you won’t be too disappointed when you leave the universal one behind at a venue.  You can get another at most any office supply box store.
3. Your own PowerPoint controller (I highly recommend the Logitech Professional Presenter R800, which includes a green laser and a cool timer that vibrates to tell you when to shut up. )
4. A small portable mouse (a cheap one works fine; you won’t be using it that much.)
5. Copy of your install disk for Microsoft Office for when you’re sitting in a Kinko’s at 2:00 AM and need that obscure printer driver.
6. A 4 gig flash drive for backing up your presentation, and another for using sneakernet to transport it to another platform. Better still, carry a second backup  in your pocket or purse. It will save your show when your laptop dies or is stolen out of the meeting room while you pee.
7. Portable travel alarm clock with a display that you can read from across the stage.  (I also recommend the free iPhone app NightTime for its  big red-number display.)
8. Portable digital thermometer, to settle the argument between the hotel engineer and the whining guest who insists it’s too cold.
9. Fully loaded iPod, with royalty-free music that you can play during walk-in and breaks in your program, plus news podcasts, a movie and a favorite TV show or two.
10. iPod/iPhone USB connector cord and AC adapter/charger
11. A spare pair of Apple earbuds so you can listen on the plane
12. A stereo 1/8″ (mini) phone to 2 mono 1/4″ phone send return (insert) cable so you can plug the iPod directly into the sound system (ask the guy at Radio Shack).
13. Noise canceling headphones (I highly recommend the Bose Quiet Comfort 15′s.  They sound much better, and are a great comfort when strapped in next to the inconsolable crying baby.)
14. Three or four spare AAA batteries to power your remote and headphones.
15. Package of 2 spare Duracell 12V batteries for the wireless mics, even when the hotel supplies them. When they go dead, it’s always in the middle of your show.
16. Package of Halls Honey Lemon Cough Drops (the Cherry ones make your tongue look weird)
17. Pack of chewable Pepto Bismo tablets
18. Package of Imodium AD (for when Pepto Bismo doesn’t help)
19. Melatonin tablets. The absolute best herbal remedy for jet lag. Take two an hour or two before  sleepytime.
20. Blindfold (for airplane sleepytime. Also handy for terminating unwanted conversations with annoying seatmates. You can buy them in most airport shops, but they hand these out in first class, so ask the cabin crew for one on your next long haul.
21. Copy of your room setup instructions. The hotel will have lost the one you sent ahead. Trust me on this.
22. Copy of your standard introduction, printed in 24 point type. Your introducer will have forgotten the one you sent ahead. Trust me on this too.
23. Color copy of your passport (and applicable visas)
24. Color copy of your drivers license (enlarged 2x)
25. A crisp $100 bill (series 2000 or later; some overseas hotels won’t accept the older ones). Hide it in a pocket or fold of your computer bag. This can bail you out of a lot of trouble almost anywhere in the world.

All this, and more, fits neatly in my IBM Thinkpad’s little backback. Not only has it saved my skin, but it’s rescued more than my share of other speakers as well.

People often use this greeting without thinking, even when they don’t really want to know.

I didn’t realize exactly HOW often until recently. And lately, I simply say, “Better! Getting better every day.”

See, last Fall, while helping a neighbor with his roof, I took a nasty fall. Broke my back. Crushed my left foot. Broke my left arm so bad it required surgery. It now has enough hardware in it to set off the airport metal detectors. I spent a month in bed, a month in a power wheelchair, and another month learning how to walk.

Business flatlined. We canceled an eight-city tour for Oracle. That set us back fifty grand. Then there were the medical bills. Denise had just been laid off, so she stayed home and played nurse. I lost my hard-won chair with the Boulder Big Band. We almost lost our house. The pain and financial stress were awful, but the outpouring of concern, support and help from colleagues and friends was astonishing! There were cards and letters (and even checks) from people all over the country, all of them asking, “How ARE you?”

“Better. I have good days and bad days, but today, I’m better.”

The injuries are healing, slowly. It will take several more months to regain my strength and energy. But soon I’ll be back out on the road again, better than ever.

This experience has healed more than just the broken bones. Without realizing it, I had become jaded and bored with my work. I was tired and flabby. I was frustrated and impatient and short-tempered, until a moment of carelessness knocked me flat.

The restricted diet made me drop 20 pounds. Long days in bed gave me time to think. The time with Denise made us closer. As soon as I could type again, I started a new book. As soon as I could pick up a pair of sticks, I started practicing. I soon found ways to coach and help other speakers.

Now I laugh more and complain less. I’m more patient, less driven. Therapy and exercise made me stronger. My body and spirit are both lighter. The experience has deepened the love for my family, friends, colleagues, and even total strangers who were so generous and helpful. The coaching I’ve done has make me a better speaker. Focusing on time and grove has made me a better drummer. Bureaus are calling and bookings are up! I bounce out of bed feeling grateful and eager to greet the day.

The most important lesson in all this is that we must ALL work at getting better, all the time. Every day. Even when we’re not broken. Competition is fierce, and unless we work continuously to improve our products, our service, our marketing, our skills and our relationships, we can lose it all in an eyeblink. Being good, even really good, is not good enough. We have to get better.

So, THANK YOU for asking! I’m better. Better every day. And in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

–Orvel Ray

Earl Nightingale had it right when he wrote The Strangest Secret. “You become what you think about.” A friend gave me this cassette when I was a sophomore in college, and it changed my life. It made me aware of the internal chatter in my head, and all of the negative, discouraging things I had been saying to myself. That’s because I grew up in an abusive, dysfunctional family where I was told I’d never amount to nuthin’. My mother mocked me for wanting to go to college, and she was shocked when I won a scholarship.

My dorm roommate thought I was nuts. I started reading affirmations from a deck of 3×5 cards. Out loud. After nearly flunking out my freshman year, The Power of Positive Thinking turned me into a deans-list scholar. Then one day the psychology professor was lecturing about a study that suggested that most of our thinking takes the form of pictures, and that memories are stored and retrieved as pictures. That got me thinking.

A speed reading course had already taught a technique for remembering lists by turning them into pictures. For example, let’s say I needed to go to the store and buy toothpaste, beans, rice, coffee, sugar, bread, cereal, and bananas, I could conjure up a picture of a chimp with bad teeth, wearing a baker’s hat and eating a banana, while holding a mug full of corn flakes heaped with sugar, sitting on two burlap bags stenciled “RICE” and “BEANS.” You get the picture.

Our debate coach taught a variation of this technique, called the “loci method,” to organize important facts by visualizing a walk through the rooms of a house. This trick was popular in ancient Greece for memorizing long speeches and texts. It worked for Aristotle.

One afternoon, Denise, my wife-to-be, was working on a collage for an art class, and it occurred to me that I could put pictures together to represent my affirmations, and this might even be more effective than just words. So we each started building a scrapbook of things we’d like to have, places we’d like to go, and things we wanted to achieve in our lives. The format was simple: a cheep ring binder filled with plastic sleeves where you can slide in the pages. We cut photos from magazines and pasted them together into pages that represented our dreams and goals. We were too poor to afford a television, so we jokingly called our project “TomorrowVision.” We kept these books on the night table, and we’d review them together just before going to sleep when our subconscious mind would be most impressionable.

Years passed, and after a time we fell out of the picture-book-on-the-night-table habit. So much for applied psychology. We both had busy professional lives, then a son, and then another. We still followed the discipline of writing down our goals each month, and keeping a To-Do list in a DayTimer. But I completely forgot about TomorrowVision until I developed the film from Nassau.

One of those early life goals was to learn to scuba dive. This was represented in my scrapbook by a half-page underwater shot, torn from a magazine, of a diver with a big colorful fish on a reef.

When a client asked me to teach a series of seminars in Hawaii, we seized the opportunity and registered for pool classes, and finished our open-water certification in Kona. It was many trips, and many, many dives later that I rented that underwater camera on a whim.

As I was flipping through the dive pictures, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was the fish, the SAME fish (which I now recognized as Holocanthus ciliarus, the Queen Angel). I called out to Denise, “Darling, do you know whatever happened to those old visualization notebooks we used to have?”

“Look in the pile of books under the bed.”

There it was. The picture in the TomorrowVision book looked as if it had been shot on the same roll of film.

Shock and surprise faded into deep satisfaction as I flipped through these pages. These images that had once represented life-long goals had already been realized: our home in the mountains in Colorado; writing a book; sailing the tropics; skiing with our boys; kayaking in Alaska; teaching at the University; cycling around Ireland; speaking in Mexico, Europe and Australia. I held in my hands a virtual scrapbook of the past ten years of our lives. The music from “Twilight Zone” started playing in my head.

Dr. Maxwell Maltz taught us that, “Your subconscious mind can not tell the difference between an actual experience and one that is vividly imagined.” By looking into our future through our TomorrowVision, we were programming our brains to seek out and recognize opportunities, large and small, that would bring us closer to those goals. Looking back, it seems as if those events were inevitable, because even our most incidental daily decisions were informed by deep, subconscious intent.

Over the past 30 years, leading experts like Louise Hay, Anthony Robbins and Depak Chopra have spoken passionately about the power of creative visualization. It’s no longer viewed as a mystical phenomenon. Today you can even buy an affirmation app for your iPhone. Psychologists and neuroscientists are looking deep into the brain, and can explain in scientific terms exactly how this seemingly magical process works.

I recently read how competitors in the World Memory Championships use variations on these same visual imagery tricks to perform mind-boggling feats, recanting long strings of numbers, like the mathematical constant pi (the record now stands at more than 80,000 digits) or memorizing the sequence of a shuffled deck of playing cards in less than a minute (30 seconds is the new Four-Minute-Mile). MRI scans of the brains of these mental heavyweights shows them lighting up areas normally used for visual recall and spatial navigation. The evolutionary explanation is simple. Presumably our ancestors found it particularly useful to recall where they found their last meal, or the way back to the cave.

The same mechanism allows us to remember our future, and then automatically steer around life’s obstacles until we arrive. The life we’ve lead has been extraordinary beyond my wildest dreams. I have only one regret; what if I had kept up the discipline by changing out my TomorrowVision pages as each goal was realized, replacing them with new images and loftier goals? What more might I have done?

Today that old ring binder is sitting on my desk, awaiting a new set of pages, and I’ve included these two extraordinary photographs for your review. This simple technique can help you achieve your goals and live your dreams as well. Here’s proof that when we give our lives a roadmap, our deep intellect will eventually navigate a course to it, even if it’s hidden away on a reef, deep beneath some distant sea.
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Any behavior which gets rewarded will tend to be repeated. So we advocate paying close attention to how employees are rewarded for performing (or not performing) the various aspects of their jobs.

Performance-based compensation is nothing new. Commission plans for salespeople are common because their productivity is so easy to measure. But small business tends to eschew these compensation plans thinking that “we’re just a mom & pop store. We’re different.” In the competitive environment you’re faced with today, you have no choice. You must use every management tool available to maximize your marketing firepower.

Guerrillas are not only intolerant of non-performers, they lavishly reward their stars, setting ever-higher standards for the whole organization. The problem is how to reward your people appropriately, particularly if they’re not directly responsible for easy-to-measure activities like sales revenue. Some simple guidelines can put this powerful management tool to work for you.

The foundation of an effective performance-based compensation plan is a set of clear and specific goals for your organization as a whole, for each functional department, and for each individual employee. These goals must be objective and quantifiable. For example, “Increase walk-in traffic by ten percent, or to 650 shoppers per month, by the end of the year” or “achieve an average rating of 4.5 of 5 on monthly customer satisfaction surveys.” Subjective factors, like attitude or good work habits might be included in review criteria, but if you can’t measure them statistically, you can’t use them as a standard for performance-based compensation. Then devise methods for gathering data to measure progress (or lack of it) toward these goals. What you measure is what you get, so inspect what you expect.

Salary
The advantage is that it’s easy to calculate: punch in, punch out, so much per hour. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t motivate.

Commission
Commissions can be computed on the gross sale price (good), or the gross profit margin (better). One important factor to consider when designing a compensation plan is that it must be simple. Paying commissions on straight gross sales is easy, and if you put the table below up on the wall in the break room, everyone can quickly estimate what they’re earning if they know the overall gross margin of the store.

Do not pay commission on any gross margins below 13%. If they’re selling at less than 13% margin, they’re giving away the stock and putting you out of business.

Generally, the lower the gross margin, the easier the product is to sell. So guerrillas recommend paying commissions based on gross margin, to reward your sales people for working harder to maintain higher profits, not just sales.

Commission Based on Gross Sales:

All above 27%…………………………………………… 2.8%
26.0 – 26.99……………………………………………… 2.6
25.0 – 25.99……………………………………………… 2.4
24.0 – 24.99……………………………………………… 2.2
23.0 – 23.99……………………………………………… 2.0
22.0 – 22.99……………………………………………… 1.9
21.0 – 21.99……………………………………………… 1.8
20.0 – 20.99……………………………………………… 1.7
19.0 – 19.99……………………………………………… 1.6
18.0 – 18.99……………………………………………… 1.5
17.0 – 17.99……………………………………………… 1.4
16.0 – 16.99……………………………………………… 1.3
15.0 – 15.99……………………………………………… 1.2
14.0 – 14.99……………………………………………… 1.1
13.0 – 13.99……………………………………………… 1.0
Less than 13.0%………………………………………… none

Basing commissions on gross margin rather than gross sales is harder to track, but it motivates salespeople to sell higher-priced and higher-profit items, accessories and extended service contracts, as well as to follow up with prospects and customers for referrals.

Commission based on gross profit discourages discounting. It can also produce competitive rivalries between salespeople, (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

Commission based on Gross Margin:

All above 27%…………………………………………… 15.5%
26.0 – 26.99……………………………………………… 15.0
25.0 – 25.99……………………………………………… 14.5
24.0 – 24.99……………………………………………… 14.0
23.0 – 23.99……………………………………………… 13.5
22.0 – 22.99……………………………………………… 13.0
21.0 – 21.99……………………………………………… 12.5
20.0 – 20.99……………………………………………… 12.0
19.0 – 19.99……………………………………………… 11.5
18.0 – 18.99……………………………………………… 11.0
17.0 – 17.99……………………………………………… 10.5
16.0 – 16.99……………………………………………… 10.0
Less than 16.0%…………………………………………… none

Of course, you have to adjust these percentages to your business and your market.

Bonus
Bonuses can be paid on a monthly sales quota, or on reaching a target profit margin. The whole sales team can qualify for a bonus for reaching a collective goal. Managers often receive a bonus for exceeding key performance targets. Some retailers offer year-end bonuses, but these are not really very motivating. Bonuses are more effective if they cover shorter cycles. People need to be able to envision their progress, either on a regular report, a reader board, or a United-Way-style thermometer.

Spiffs
An acronym for “sales promotional incentive funds,” spiffs are paid for specific sales events. Some spiffs are funded by manufacturers to move specific SKUs. Or they can be paid by the store for selling an unwanted, obsolete or damaged item.

Guerrillas never allow the manufacturer to pay spiffs directly to their salespeople because you want the credit for paying the reward. Also, you don’t want the manufacturers to control what products sell on your floor. You need to manage that mix based on your niche, your identity and your business model.

Sales Contests
It’s important to include all the support people, the back office, the warehouse, cashiers and delivery.

You can run a sales contest on any number of metrics. First Sale of the day, Biggest Ticket of the day, Most Line Items in an order, Most Orders written in a day, Order with Highest Gross Margin.

You can also run contests on product knowledge. Devise a simple test and give a certain sum for every question they get right.

The best sales contests combine performance with an element of chance. For example, every qualifying sale wins a ticket dropped into the hat, then a weekly drawing determines the winner of a cash prize, a merchandise prize, or the trip for two to Hawaii. The more you sell, the better your odds of winning.

An effective variation is every qualifying sale gets to draw a playing card from a deck. The best poker hand at the end of the contest wins all.

Wiltshire TV, in Thousand Oaks, California, has developed an unusual variant of Bingo. Each month, each square on the bingo is assigned a different product. Instead of letters and numbers, their Bingo card is laid out with brands across the top and model numbers down the side. Sell a qualifying product and you mark that square on the card. Sell any five qualifying items in a row, and BINGO!

LOTS more Guerrilla Retailing strategies in our book, Guerrilla Retailing – How to Make Big Profits from your Retail Business. Order it today on Amazon.

The good ones see themselves as part of the larger team, and will share their wealth of experience to insure your overall success. The bad ones see themselves as the star-of-the-show, with little consideration for the needs of other (often non-professional) speakers on the program. Use these 10 guidelines to screen the mountain of material that your speakers or their bureaus will send you.

Content

A professional speaker should engage, educate, motivate, and entertain, and in that order of priority. Unless this event changes your peoples’ behavior in some measurable way, you’re wasting their time and your money. New skills, new information, and new insights produce new customers, new sales, and increased profits.

Authority

Wouldn’t you rather take advice from a published expert, who has invested the time and effort to thoroughly research their field and write a book, or two, or three? Ask for autographed copies. And beware of vanity press imprints. If a major New York house published their books, you know they’re the real deal.

Originality

Beginners often pirate others’ examples and content, sometimes even telling a story as if it had actually happened to them. I recently heard a meeting planner complain, “If I hear one more cliché out of this guy I will scream.” If you’ve heard it before, so have your people.

Delivery

Are you looking for an academic expert (who may put your people to sleep) or a stand-up comic (whose act could play a nightclub)? Don’t settle. Look for a pro who can engage AND entertain, delivering powerful content with passion and pizzazz. After all, you want your people to remember the point, not just the punch line.

Customization

If a speaker is going to presume to tell you how to run your business better, they better understand your business. Select a speaker who will take a personal interest in your industry, your company, and your people. Will they visit your office, review your collateral material, shop your competition, or spend a day riding with your salespeople? Will they fly in early to attend the whole conference? An outsider’s insight may prove priceless. A real pro is a quick study, and will customize until they sound like they’re from home office.

Certification

There are two conferred by the National Speakers Association: the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and the Council of Peers Award of Excellence (CPAE). The CPAE is an honorary designation, a lifetime achievement award, while the CSP requires a minimum of 250 presentations over a five-year period, for at least 100 different clients, at a substantial minimum fee, and must be renewed every five years. The CSP is your assurance of the highest standards of professionalism and excellence. An elite group of veterans hold both.

Technical Mastery

The days when a speaker could stand behind a podium and just read from notes are long gone. Top pros supercharge their speeches with multiple multi-media: computer animation, upbeat music, sound effects and video. And they bring their own computers, projectors and microphones. (BTW, this can save you a bundle!) After all, when take your car to a mechanic, don’t you expect them to use their own tools?

Access

Does a live person answer the phone when you call? Successful speakers travel constantly, but are always accessible through their staff. They use cell phones, voice-mail and e-mail to keep in touch. The real pros check both at least twice a day, and respond promptly, personally.

Video

They did include a video didn’t they? The pros all have at least one; or two, or more. Ask for the what-you-see-is-what-you-get version, shot live, unedited (except perhaps for opening trailers). And while the WYSIWYG take may be technically flawed, anyone can look good in front of a studio full of friends.

Audition

Are they coming to your area? The pros get around, and will gladly arrange for you to sit in. If that’s not an option, interview them by phone. Think of it as a live one-on-one audition. Ask them to advise you on a particular challenge or business issue, then ask yourself, “Does this sound like the kind of advice we want our people to hear?”

References

You should never have to ask for them. A professional will automatically include them in the press kit, along with a client list and multiple testimonials. Read the letters. Look at the dates; are they current? Check references on their LinkedIn profile as well. Then call at least two.

Deliverables

What will your people take away to help them recall and implement what they’ve heard? Can your speaker provide a textbook, a workbook, a cassette or two, an action list, a checklist, a laminated wallet card, or a free web e-zine. Some of these “extras” should be included in the fee. Can they post their handouts and PowerPoint slides on a web site for download? Ask. These minor extras add major impact and multiply the take-home value of the message.

Fees

Worry less on what the speaker will charge; worry more on what your people will get. Does the fee include pre-event consultation, research, customization, travel time, travel expenses, handouts, workbooks, AV equipment, pens, markers or other supplies? A bad program is no bargain. If you’re investing half a million dollars to host a conference, you can’t afford a dud.

On the other hand, most pros will leverage their preparation by doing multiple programs. Stretch your speaker budget by asking for combined fees for a keynote, plus multiple breakout sessions, VIP receptions, panel discussions, etc.

In response to the last blog on Guerrilla Trade Show Selling, Holly Wilner, Founder at Trade-a-Date Singles Events, responded:

“Yes good stuff [on how to take advantage of a trade show opportunity] …although my boyfriend, a journalist for over 30 years got a little indignant about someone falsely posing as one, which may actually come back to bite the poser…but if he comes through with the article, then I guess hes met his obligation.”

The best description of a journalist that I’ve ever heard: “We observe. And take notes.”

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I never advocated “posing.” I assumed that my colleague, who is a fellow professional speaker, has the necessary command of language to write a great story (or at least the financial resources to have someone ghost it.) And I absolutely re-iterate, you must deliver the goods, or you won’t be asking the right questions or documenting the right answers. If you approach it with the wrong intent, it simply won’t work.

More powerful than any brochure you could send about your product, a tear sheet from the magazine featuring a quote from the CEO is the most powerful door opening weapon in the guerrilla arsenal.

If you have ANY qualms about the ethics of this approach, I recommend full-disclosure. “This is my first assignment. I’m brand new at this. In my day job I work for . . . ”

And by ALL means, ask your editor to coach you. Ask IN ADVANCE what they expect the word count to be, and if there is any special slant or angle on the story they’d like you to take. Editors always give me my best ideas for articles. Ask them to e-mail you their “editorial guidelines” which will serve as a cook-book for their book. Rustle up some past issues at the library or on line to get a feel for the form and format

This approach is based on the Guerrilla Selling principle of “Investment.” Give first. You are giving the magazine and its readers new information and insight; you are giving the companies you interview publicity for their products. You benefit by building relationships with potential customers. Everybody wins.

The expertise you gain in the process will very quickly make you an industry expert, as well as a legitimate journalist.

Paul Wesseling, owner of Aktivia BV, www.co2-meter.com, asked this question of the Guerrilla Marketing Tips for Small Business discussion group on LinkedIn:

“Does anyone have out-of-the-box suggestions to present a product on a child nursery trade fair without being one of the official participants or stand holders? The product regards indoor air quality. Was thinking of joining a participant in their stand, but am trying to be more creative “

OK, let’s get REALLY guerrilla

Call around to the editors of several child- or family-oriented magazines, and introduce yourself as a free-lance writer. Ask if you can submit a “roundup” article, “on-spec” (which means that you don’t expect to get paid for it, and they only publish it if it’s good) reviewing this particular show. Any editor in his right mind will say, “Sure. Knock yourself out.”

As soon as you have a “yes,” from an editor, contact the show management to obtain a PRESS badge. Explain that you are “covering the trade show for ________ magazine.” There may be a nominal fee, but it will be far LESS than an exhibitor badge or booth space. Most trade shows actually WELCOME the press. As a bonus, a PRESS badge will usually get you into all the general sessions, seminars, receptions and parties as well.

The only sales collateral you’ll need are some simple, elegant business cards that list JUST your name, phone and e-mail. You won’t need a lot of them, but they should be of the very highest quality. The sort of card you’d expect to get from an attorney.

Then, arrive at the show dressed in your most professional business attire, carrying a small MP3 recorder and a black leather legal-pad folio. Look for exhibitors who could potentially be a good match to carry your product, then DON’T SELL IT TO THEM. In fact, don’t mention it at all. Not to anyone.

Instead, go out on the floor early and late when traffic is slow, and approach each targeted exhibitor. Ask if you can interview them for your article. People who wouldn’t give you the time of day as a salesperson will GLADLY give you an hour as a journalist. Make appointments with the top officers if possible, but stay out of their way when the show floor is busy. You don’t want to take them away from their true mission.

Start the interview with general questions, “Your name? Your title? How did you get into this business? Tell me about your product lines? What sort of customers do you sell to? What does your distribution channel look like. Which are your most successful products? What TRENDS do you see affecting your business in the future?” Your questions, of course, are going to indirectly QUALIFY or DIS-qualify them as a prospective customer for your product.

Now, NOBODY can accuse you of “suitcasing” (the less-than-polite term for reverse selling on a trade show floor that would get you thrown out on the street). But you WILL be able to identify several PRIME prospects. Your mission is to collect high-quality leads and build high-level relationships.

IMMEDIATELY after the show, send them a THANK YOU note. And within 48 hours of THAT, follow up with a sales call. “You know, based on what you told me during our conversation at the show, you may have an interest in my _________ product.”

Finally, write the article, summarizing trends that you saw at the show, and submit it for publication. You MUST follow through on this step to maintain your personal integrity. If the publication actually PRINTS your piece, that’s icing on the cake. Send a copy to every vendor you interviewed.

For many, many more no-cost ideas for effective selling at trade shows, read Guerrilla Trade Show Selling (he says, inserting a shameless plug for his book).