7 Reasons Why Sales Representatives Should Dump Selling and Embrace Marketing

1. Sales chasing you instead of you chasing sales

Because you focus on continuous effort of adding value and creating market demand via marketing, you don’t need to wait for the last week of the month to chase for sales target and plead for help from the buyer.

Instead, you can expect the sales orders to come pouring into your ordering department at the beginning of the month, as you continue to build the brand and creating the needs for your products.

Hence, if you do your marketing well, the sales will chase you instead of you chasing for the sales which is a tradition most of the sales people do towards the month’s end or quarterly closing.

2. Boss! When would be our next price ‘adjustment’?

With appropriate marketing activities and brand building effort, you will find that your pricing remain intact despite competitors pricing pressure. Your customers will value your total package solution that you offer to them more than those sales people who will try to ‘push’ or ‘sell’ them cheaper products.

At times, when your company made the decision for price ‘adjustment’ (increase!), you will find that your clients are far more willing to stock up your products before the new pricing takes effect; this will certainly help you to achieve your sales target faster and earlier.

In fact, those sales representatives that capitalize on marketing activities always look forward to the next price ‘adjustment’ as the way to stock their customers up, block competitors from securing their orders by constrain ting their clients storage space and credit limit.

Hence, Marketing orientated Sales Representatives always look forward to the next price ‘adjustment’!

3. For a Marketer: Selling is a walk in the park!

Indeed selling is a walk in the park for a Marketer, simply because you choose your target audience.

What you need to do is to find the right target audience and offer them with the right solutions at the right time and place.

Do it right and do it consistently, you will have a client that not only is your loyal customer; they would possibly be your advocate and be your source of referrals.

Most of the time, you would hardly need to ‘hard’ sell or subject yourself for last minute sales target chasing and compete with your competitors for time, space and credit limit.

You can visit your clients at any time as you pleased and not confined to specific period of time and you will have quality time with your clients to discuss issues beyond price and products, issues that of interest to both of you and build genuine rapport and long term relationship.

4. You are your clients’ business partner not their slave!

Customers need not to be the king because they need us as their business partner. With the marketing resources available, we could offer them solutions to help them to sustain and growth their business, hence, we are their equal partner and our client needs us as much as we need them.

We are business partners and we support each other in this dog eat dog world, won’t that be better than being a slave to our clients? Does a slave help to add value to the business other than being ‘slave’ around?

Ultimately, do you want to be a ‘slave’ to your clients?

5. We don’t sell, our clients consult us

As you talk to more customers, study the trade, you will see the difference in approach of your various clients. You can also observe those who are more successful clients and those who are less successful.

This in return will offer you perfect opportunity to gain the knowledge to advice your clients on what’s works and what’s not in the industry. Your clients would appreciate your in-depth knowledge of the industry and will seek for your advice as a business partners and business consultant.

In addition, you would be able to provide the necessary tools provided by your marketing department to support your clients business and to help deal with some of the challenges that your customers face.

This will earn your clients trust, respect and build your personal reputation in the market. Wouldn’t that be cool?

6. Your boss will see you as the expert in your territory

Because you are spending quality time with your clients, you will gain much insights and understanding of the industry, your customers and the tricks of the trade.

Naturally, over time, you will be the expert in your area and your customers. Your boss will approach you for advice due to your insights, networks and experience. Your marketing department too would seek for your feedback to further improve on the effectiveness of their strategies, tactics and tools.

And when the time comes for sales target setting and forecasting of sales, you are the one that your boss talk to for ‘estimation’ of sales target

Won’t you prefer to see a more realistic and achievable sales target?

7. Last but not least, it is fun!

It is now beyond selling and buying as you would have all the available resources and tools provided by the company in your hands to help you. You could integrate your marketing activities into your selling strategies and go beyond sales figure and price. You could organize variety of activities that will bring yourself and your clients’ closer relationship and better rapport.

You are now having your clients as your buddies and to enjoy the activities together, courtesy of your company and that’s will only make it easier for you to achieve your sales target.

You are the consultant in the mind of your clients and the expert in the eyes of your boss. You earn your respect and dignity by just being marketing orientated in your selling approach.

You will be happier, richer and more respectable as an individual. Isn’t that great? And fun too?

Why Job Hoppers Make the Best Employees

An article you would find it interesting..........

Are job hoppers really make the best employees?

Does it seems counter-intuitive...?

Perhaps the tenure of 18 months per job is debatable...?

Or it is more relevant to the Gen Y than Gen X?

Should job change within the company or function could be considered as job hopping....?

What's your take?

People in their 20s on average change jobs every 18 months. People in their 30s — at least the ones that continue to do well in their careers — change jobs frequently as well, although at a slower pace than the 20 somethings. So if you think job-hopping is bad, change your thinking. Job hoppers are not quitters. In fact, they make better co-workers and better employees and I bet are generally more satisfied with their work life.

Here’s why:

1. Job hoppers have more intellectually rewarding careers.

In almost any job, the learning curve is very steep early on. And then it goes flat. So by the end of two years at the same job, you often have little left to learn. Which makes me wonder what people are doing to keep their brains alive if they stay at the same job for 20 years. It also makes me certain that job hoppers know more.

If you change jobs often, then you’re always challenged with a lot to learn — your learning curve stays high. This is true for office skills, and industry specific knowledge. It also applies to your emotional intelligence. The more you have to navigate corporate hierarchies and deal with office dramas, the more you learn about people and the better you will become at making people comfortable at work. And that’s a great skill to have.

2. Job hoppers have more stable careers.

Read more here

Selling vs Marketing: What's your say?

Are your organisation sales orientated or marketing orientated?

What are the key differences between a sales orientated vs marketing orientated organisation?

If you are a sales and marketing personnel, which organisation that you prefer to work with?

Please join our discussion and give your comments too!

Sales Orientated Organisation	Marketing Orientated Organisation
Business philosophy is to gain more sales and increase market share thru direct head on comparison with their competitors.	Business philosophy is to increase sale by continuous adding and creating value to customers and contributes to market growth at the same time.
Their pricing strategy is to out beat their competitors with the lowest price in the market and highest margin to their distributors and dealers.	To sustain pricing integrity via premium pricing supported with integrated marketing efforts and branding building strategies.
Profitability – gain more sales in the expense of lower margin and lesser profitability in the long term. Risk of suffering from a shrinking market.	Growth in sales and market share as a result of increase profitability as well as contributing to overall market growth
Sales people – Chase for sales during the last week of the month end and quarterly end. Crisis management and last minute fire fighting is the norm.	Sales people perceived themselves as the critical part of the integrated marketing component. Making use of marketing activities as the opportunities and tools to continuously add value to their clients.
Promotional activities are detached from their sales people. Focus more on advertising and sales promotional activities. Out of office hours marketing activities are extra burden. Selling and marketing is two separate entity and sometimes in conflict too.	Integrated marketing activities are the resources available for the sales people’s to add value and to support their sales growth and ROI. Sales people are the core in the integrated marketing efforts and take ownership of the marketing activities.
Customer (cash) is king and sales people do their utmost to fulfill their customers’ needs and wants.	Customers as our business partner and build the business together with mutual and healthy respect for long term relationship.
Management expectations – “I don’t care how you do it, as long as you achieved your sales target”	Management expectations – “Let’s shape our business by shaping our market and continuously adding value to our customers.”

A(H1N1) Vaccination: To Be or Not To Be?

Indeed, please judge yourself.

My counter-statement in brown colour.

Remember! Those who died due to A(H1N1) virus would never have thought they would be infected by the flu virus as well, are they?

My Australian friend has just sent me this article. Read and be your own judge. Hi Team, This very alarming piece of information was sent to us today . It was written by a pharmacist in South Australia . It seems that we really need to get the message out to the public on the dangers of vaccinations that the Government is scare mongering us about!! Please take a moment to read this article, it's an absolute disgrace on every Government & pharmaceutical company on the planet. *DO NOT THINK FOR A MOMENT THAT OUR GOVERNMENT IS TRYING TO PROTECT YOU!!! * Why do you think the WHO (world health organization) and government worldwide, including European countries, US, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and other democratically elected countries want to hoodwink their own citizens and anger their own people by forcing their own people to be flu vaccinated? How would this be beneficial to the elected government? Won’t it be suicidal to the elected politicians and holding powers eg. President Obama? On the other hand, imagine if the government does not have enough supply of flu vaccine and the A(H1N1) virus turn out to be very virulent & deadly (eg. SARS virus) and people just dying on the street?? What kind of government is that? Can any government afford that? And who will blame the government and World Health Organisation for doing nothing? This is important. I'm a qualified pharmacist. I've been researching the swine flu vaccine that our government has bought for us (using our money, by the way) and its DANGEROUS. Its easy a hundred times more dangerous than the swine flu itself.*Something that freaked me out is that several swine flu vaccine manufacturers have asked governments to give them an exemption from lawsuits, in case the vaccine caused harm in people. *If you made a vaccine that you knew worked, then why would you need a legal exemption in case it hurt people? *Massive warning sign. They don't believe its safe. Is flu vaccine safe? Please check yourself thru the proper channel. http://pediatrics.about.com/od/swineflu/a/910_vac_cntvsy.htm http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/swineflu/news/mar0510safety.html http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/briefing_20091222/en/index.html Undeniably, due to the millions of people to be vaccinated, especially those for the first time, there may be small risk of over-reaction or hypersensitivity or allergy, just like some people may develop allergy or over-reaction to food, nuts or seafood and in the case of flu vaccine- egg protein. Note. Very few in a million. By now, you would know whether are you allergic to protein eggs won’t you? Do you sue your food seller or restaurant owner because you develop allergy after taking their food? No? Yes, the fact is, there are many people, with lawyers especially in US, are taking legal actions against vaccine manufacturers for all kind of reactions (related or not related) after the flu vaccination, for falling from the stairs, met with road accident, heart attack, allergy etc. Yes, vaccine manufacturers have to ask for exemption because no insurance company would want to accept their insurance and without insurance, no vaccine manufacturers want to produce flu vaccines. Hence, the government have to step in to ensure adequate supply of flu vaccines as this is concerning public health. (by giving legal exemption) The worse thing to happen is if we are having a killer flu virus and due to issues above, although we have the know-how and expertise to produce flu vaccine and yet we don’t have the production facilities to produce mass flu vaccine…. *The swine flu itself has killed about 2/3000 people total. The regular flu kills 40 000 plus per year - so why are we freaking out about swine flu, and not normal flu? Does that make sense? No. If the regular flu kills 40 000 plus per year, and the swine flu only killed 2/3 000 - then why are governments buying it in advance, giving it to us for free, and giving drug manufacturers immunity to legal cases against them? Does that make sense? No. The regular flu (seasonal flu) kills 40,000 plus per year in US while A(H1N1) flu killed 2 in 3,000. Most of the people has developed some kind of immunity towards the seasonal flu, hence, the seasonal flu kills mostly the people who are physically weak or are with other medical conditions (eg. Elderly, diabetes, heart problems etc) which comes to approx. 40,000 a year. However, A(H1N1) flu is a newly mutated strain that most people have yet to gain immunity and kills 2 in 3,000. Do your own calculation – 2 in 3000, how many in 30 million populations? 20,000 at least. And this is about people who die. What if the virus mutate into something more deadly? What about those who are hospitalized, kept in intensive unit, Critical care unit, on long term hospital treatment? An estimation of 5 times of those who die, 100,000 hospitalized – can the government hospital and private hospital manage additional 100,000 extra patients required ICU due to A(H1N1) on top of the existing demand? And the new strain virus not only kills the elderly or weak, A(H1N1) virus tends to kill more children, young adults, pregnant mothers etc. (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/swineflu/news/dec2309nejm.html) Do you want to be part of that figure? The swine flu vaccine contains 2 horribly dangerous compounds - one is called thimerosol. It is made 50% of mercury. It binds to receptors in your Brain, and basically causes brain damage. Is it smart to be injected with thimerosol, and get brain damage, dropping 10 IQ points and going dumb, in Order to avoid getting a flu that kills 95% less people than regular flu? No The other horrible in gredient is called squalene. Squalene accidentally tricks your immune system into killing your own cells, which creates autoimmune diseases like asthma, multiple scelerosis, diabetes, and a bunch of diseases that we don't have a name for yet (because squalene hasn't been used for that long, and we have little data on its effects) - is it smart to inject yourself with that stuff, in order to avoid a relatively mild flu, like the swine flu? No. If you're a pregnant mother about to take Panvax, ask yourself this - why would you take Panvax, when it contains Neomycin and Polymyxin B Sulfate - both of which exhibit positive risk to unborn children - so as to avoid what? A mild flu, that kills 95% fewer people than the regular flu? Not all flu vaccine contains thimerosal or squalene. Those contain thimerosal as preservative are those with multi-dose packing (10 dose in one vial, means for 10 people), which is cheaper to produce and mostly supply through mass as tender item. Squalene is used by some manufacturers to boost the immune response. None of those ingredients have been proven to cause side effects. However, if you are still worry, flu vaccine which is thimerosal-free, and squalene-free is easily available in the market as a single vial in one dose. Just check with the doctors and look at the package insert. I'm a qualified pharmacist. I scored in the top 0.1% of my state in school. I am not a pharmacist or a doctor. I am like you who are concerned with my family members and their health. I hope I could give them the best available option technology could provide. I believe in prevention is better than cure. And vaccination has prevented a lot of disease in the past eg. Polio, hepatitis A & B, mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, HiB, chickenpox, rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease. I'm expert at critical analysis of drugs and their effects on humans. And let me be blunt - if someone came up to me with a syringe full of swine flu vaccine, or came near my family with one - I would take the needle off them and poke them with it myself - followed by several very hard punches. This stuff is poison. Don't take it. Don't let your friends take it. Don't let your family take it. If some idiot in a lab coat asks you if you want it, ask them about thimerosol, squalene, and why the company making it wants legal exemption from being sued, and watch their face go into "OMG, I'm being asked serious questions that I don't have the answer to" mode. Anyway, I hope you're all well. I took many type of vaccines (tetanus, hepatitis, polio, chickenpox, flu vaccines) myself in the past and have been flu vaccinated since 2007. My family, my daughter, my parents have took it since 2007 too and we have been healthier, fall sick less frequently, and even if we fall sick, we recovered faster. My family, my parents and myself have already been flu vaccinated against A(H1N1) and the seasonal flu as well. We are all protected. Finally, it is your choice. Wish you and your family healthy and happy.