NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT.
SOME OF MY EXPERIENCE AND SUCCESSFUL APPROACHES
IN MY CONSULTING SERVICES.
RECRUITMENT / SELECTION SERVICES MARKETING
Recruitment / Selection marketing is a service and hene the concept of service
Marketing comes into play.
In service marketing concept,
You [personality ] and your company [image ] plays a significant part in the
Marketing of your services.
This means , you have to package your service as a champion package
-UNIQUE / different from others
-EXPERT / result oriented
-PROFESSIONAL / practical and competent
-SMART / useful and timely
-CUSTOMISED / tailored services.
Seven Steps
New business marketing , the following is a seven step process that you can use to develop new business and new sales for your service.
The Seven Steps to New Business Development
1. Opportunity Identification
2. Opportunity Preparation
3. Organizational Marketing
4. Sales Marketing
5. Prospecting
6. Personal Selling
7.ServiceforReselling
The Seven Steps to New Business Development
The following are some checklist ideas for you to consider for accomplishing each of the seven steps. The list is comprehensive, but incomplete. Each situation requires its own thinking, planning, and action.
I. Opportunity Identification
Identify all segments that you serve (such as geography, markets segments , industry segments]
Identify all segments you don't serve, or don't serve well, that it is logical that you could serve.
Look at the customers, segments, services and determine what opportunities that presents.
Ask customers what they want and need (either in person, by phone, by survey, by focus group, or other methods).
In addition, look for opportunities customers (or especially your
major customer contacts) may not think of or even know about you / your organization.
Look at your company's existing services, for what could be exploited or sold better.
Look at your company's special strengths.
Look at your own personal strengths.
Look for a few opportunities to concentrate on that have a high potential for large results.
2. Opportunity Preparation
Learn customer needs and technologies related to the opportunity, service, you have identified or focused on.
Learn technologies related to effectively selling and delivering the service, product, to the customer.
Like online servicing etc.
Prepare sales literature.[ QUALITY BROCHURE as well as WEBSITE ]
Prepare presentation materials and literature. [ MULTI MEDIA ]
Look for added value, which you or your company might add or increase, to improve on the service or make it more valuable or easier to use.
3. Organizational Marketing
The purpose of marketing is to get customers to contact you asking about your new service or to get them to feel favorably toward your organization and your new service so that when you contact them they are receptive.
Obtain reference letters .
Start by focusing on the segments with the greatest opportunities, that is, unless you determine that you first need to focus into smaller segments. This would be either because you need to learn more, or because you don't have the resources to support the larger opportunity segment.
After selecting segments for emphasis, prepare for advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, publicity, and other organizational communications as appropriate to support the new service or opportunity.
Select the most effective marketing communications approach (such as direct mail supported by follow up telemarketing), implement it, and support it effectively (in other words, if you get good leads, make sure you follow them up).
Develop relationships with industry and market "influencers" (such as experts, magazine editors, association executives, or people of renown in leading customer companies).
Take action to strengthen bonds with existing customers and obtain positive publicity from that relationship, such as publishing an article about how your service helped the customer, while at the same time making the customer look wise and smart.
4. Sales Marketing
The purpose of Sales marketing is to get prospects or customers to contact you personally, asking about the service, or to get them to favorably toward either you personally or your new service ,, so when you contact them they are receptive.
Select market segments / customer segments , on which to focus your efforts. They might be selected because they have large s profit potential, because they should be easy to sell to, because should be easy to partner with and learn from .
Network with customers and influencers. join customer industry associations (regionally and/or nationally). Become active in associations. Become a resource to associations and to target markets / industries.
Look for additional ways to leverage your selling
-such as giving presentations at association or customer company meetings or developing educational seminars.
Devise and implement a strategy to develop friendly business relationships with influencers and customers. This is so they are more inclined to give you business, time, and information, and to give you referrals and names of potential prospects both in their organizations and elsewhere.
Devise and implement a strategy to market yourself to potential prospect generators and referral providers, as a person and a company highly worthy of receiving referrals, so they are more likely to refer prospects to you .
5.Prospecting 0
After identifying segments and prospect types on which to focus, look for and find lists Of matching Potential prospects, (companies, business units, or people) There are many sources of such lists both free and available for a charge: the list of largest companies in a number of categories available in local business newspapers, Dun & Bradstreet and other financial (and information company) lists of businesses and employers, the computerized D&B list, Corporate 1000 Directory (including names, addresses and phone numbers of key persons and divisions), association directories and lists, purchased mailing lists (by SIC code, location, job function, and business area), the Yellow Pages, and others.
Attempt to devise a strategy that identifies decision makers in these market segments.
Devise and implement a strategy to market yourself to potential prospectgenerators and referral providers as a person and company highly worthy of receiving referrals, so they are more likely to refer prospects to you.
6. Personal Selling
Make an appointment with the prospect by making a "selling" phone contact, perhaps following an introductory letter. Make the letter short and powerful. Refuse to sell or give your specific "ideas" on the phone.
Even better, make an appointment by following up on a referral.
Carefully develop a short, powerful justification statement as to why it is extraordinarily important to the prospect that he or she spends a few face toface minutes with you. A potential statement might be something like, "I have some ideas that have been of major benefit to a number of organizations like yours. I need just a few minutes to share them with you. Then you can determine if they might be applicable to your situation. It'll be entirely up to you. Is that fair?" (After getting a positive response, ask for the appointment and set a specific appointment time and place. The more specific you can be in giving your justification, without giving away your "ideas," the more effective you will be.)
Gather as much appropriate information on the prospect as possible before you make the sales call. This impresses the prospect favorably, helps you to plan and carry out the sales call more effectively, and reduces the number of less important questions you need to ask. Thus, you are able to get to the point quicker.
One of the biggest mistakes in selling, and one that is made frequently, is to begin the presentation before the prospect realizes that he might have a significant problem or need, and before he is "interested" in a potential solution.
For more complex sales, make calls on, develop relationships with, sell to, and keep informed all decision makers and decision influencers.
7. Servicingfor Reselling
Follow up after the sale to make sure that what was sold was dehvered properly and promptly.
Develop relationships with key customer contacts so they want to continue to do business with you, readily share information with you, recommend you, and give you many results generating business referrals.
Take action to strengthen bonds with customers and obtain positive publicity from that relationship, such as publishing an article about how your service helped the customer, while at the same time making the customer look wise and smart.
After providing service of great value, and after establishing a friendly, respectful, trusting relationship with as many key customer contacts as possible, then proactively (creatively and in most cases subtly) solicit numerous and powerful testimonials and referrals.
OTHER USEFUL PROMOTION IDEAS.
I have used these concepts to create more visibility / greater awareness
Which produced more business leads.
1.Conduct open seminar for line managers/ general managers about
your services [ combine with another HR services like training etc]
2.Organize a morning breakfast session [ 7.30 to 8.30] for
HR managers / other about your services.
[ 30 minutes presentation and 30 minutes of Q&As. ]
3.Write free articles in customers/ other companies newsletters
on your services.
4.Write articles in business publications.
5.Join industry association and seek position.
6.Offer value added services like job analyes, writing job descriptions,
job specifications, writing job ads, etc.
7. Seek an opportunity in TV programs on CAREER SEGMENTS.
8. Add more services , which are close to your CORE SERVICE
- career counseling, career planning, etc.
HOPE THIS IS USEFUL TO YOU
REGARDS
LEO LINGHAM