Quit Being So Darn Nice!

By Jill Konrath

"I really care about my customers," Terry told me as we were driving to an appointment. "I try to do the very best I can for them and make sure that their needs are met."

"Sounds good," I thought to myself. "But I wonder if it's true."

Most sellers I know go to great pains to point out to me just how customer-focused they are. They want to make sure I know that they're not pushy or manipulative or sleazy in any way. Yet when they get into meetings with prospective clients, they quickly switch into a seller-centric mode of operation before they even know what's happening.

That's exactly what occurred in my sales call with Terry. Before we went in, I asked her to tell me what she'd said to get the appointment.

"I told him that we'd introduced some exciting new services that I thought could help reduce turnaround time in their production area," Terry told me

While the meeting appeared to have a customer-centric agenda, what actually played out during our time with the prospect was an entirely different matter.

After a few minutes of genial exchanges and a bit of data gathering about the business and operation, the decision maker asked Terry about her new offering.

Excited to learn of his interest, she started talking about it. Then she pulled out brochure. And she kept on talking - answering his questions, one-by-one, in excruciating detail.

Before we knew it, her time was up and we were escorted to the lobby. The decision maker thanked us for our time and instructed Terry to keep in touch.

Out we walked. Empty-handed. With no hope of ever selling anything.

But Terry was customer-focused, right? She graciously answered all his questions and told him exactly what he wanted to know about her offering.

I'm sorry. I beg to disagree. Terry wasted that man's time. She wasn't one bit concerned about his business operation. She just cared about being perceived as a service-oriented and helpful person.

If you want to truly be customer-focused, then stop being so darned NICE!

Mind you, I'm not talking about being rude, mean or ornery to prospective clients. Instead, your job today is to help customers figure out how to improve their business operations. That means increasing or decreasing something - and especially "something" that's tied in to one of their key business metrics.

Here are several ideas on how you can truly be customer-centric in today's marketplace:

1. Become an expert in your client's business.

Nothing beats an immersion course. Roll up your sleeves and become an apprentice for a week. Identify the goals and objectives, mission-critical business imperatives and critical success factors. Find out what's happening in their industry.

Learn how your product or service fits into their work flow. Discover where the gaps are - what kind of problems occur in their current process or methodology. Explore the business ramifications of these problems and the value of solving them.

Some sellers tell me they can't take the time to do this ... that they need to be out making sales calls and signing contracts. Or they say their boss won't let them do this.

Yet their customer knowledge is so shallow - and I mean incredibly shallow - that they can't even hold an intelligent conversation with a key decision maker for longer than five minutes.

You can't be customer-centric if you don't understand your client's business. You can only show them your offering, albeit in a very nice manner, and hope that they understand the difference it makes in their organization.

2. Sidestep early discussions about your services.

Many sellers inadvertently set themselves up to talk about their services right away. In phone calls to prospective buyers, they mention their new "stuff" to get their foot-in-the-door. This type of lead-in guarantees that they'll to be asked to talk about their offering. Requests for appointments should always focus on business results.

When asked about your services in a first sales call, answer very briefly and guide the conversation back to the prospect's business. It's not nice to waste your customer's time talking about something that may be entirely irrelevant to their business.

3. Prepare your questions ahead of time.

You may not know this, but top sellers always prepare a list of questions to ask before they go on the call. In fact, these questions are carefully planned to elicit very specific types of information about the customer's business, goals, objectives, current situation, challenges and more.

You can't be customer focused unless you write your questions down. Otherwise, when you're talking to a prospective client you'll continually be thinking of what you'll SAY next.

If you're not listening and totally tuned into what your customer is saying, you're not being nice - you're being rude!

Honestly, the real key in selling is to not delude yourself into thinking that being nice is what customers are looking for. They don't need more friends. Nor do they really care about your service offering.

Customers want someone to help them improve their business. They want a seller who brings them ideas and insights. That's what's valuable today - it's the new NICE!

State Fair

As the annual state fair dates approach, the event coordinator finalizes the larger plans and needs ideas for giveaways and items for vendors. After hearing about your wonderful ideas for another client planning a technology conference they contact you for insight.

Based on last years attendance, the event coordinator is estimating about 1,000 attendees this year over the course of the fair. Everyone will get welcome gifts as the enter the fairgrounds, so volunteers can hand out backpacks filled with a state fair t-shirt, a kids toy and customized water bottles. This is a great opportunity for any of the businesses that are sponsors for the fair to promote themselves by splitting the cost of all four items and having their logo printed on all of them.
Since there will be about 50 vendors selling food or products, split the cost of booth necessities. Food vendors can assist in the costs to purchase cups by putting their logo or name on them. Another perfect giveaway is customized hand sanitizer for customers, so they can clean up before and after they eat. Product vendors can offer visitors personalized fans, which will be convenient if the weather gets too hot, and bug repellent simply makes sense at an outdoor event.
As the night sky begins to to set in, make things fun for families by providing accessories for the evening. Glowing items are sure to to be a hit with the kids, so try finding a youth organization like 4-H club to split costs and give away glow-in-the-dark glasses. Kids will enjoy the cool effects at night. Lastly, volunteers can provide complimentary mini flashlights, which always come in handy, both at the fair and thereafter.

Ideas for welcome gifts:
Try a drawstring backpack as a great item for parents and kids alike!

This squeezable foam big ball shooter is fun for the family!

20-oz reusable water bottles that fold flat are new enough that people will enjoy the concept but still remain a product they will want to keep!

Focus on Small Business

I don't know about you, but I'm getting plenty tired reading about this dicey economy. Seemingly every week I'm hearing the same messages and hand-wringing about jobless claims, consumer confidence, housing prices, manufacturer activity, the price of oil, Wall Street's reaction to just about anything. the debt crisis in Europe, the deficit, the Fed and unemployment going up or down by a tick or two.

It's time for promotion products to come to the rescue! How? By distributors banding together and concentrating our efforts on helping small business. I keep hearing from the experts that small business is the sector that really drives the economy. Consider these statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau:
- 7 out of 10 new jobs in the private sector come from small business
- 91% of business out there have 10 or fewer employees

There are 51 million small businesses that need our services. Sometimes we as distributors miss the forest for the trees, looking for that bigger company we can hook into, the Fortune 1000 firm or the Inc. 500 company we can hit a home-run with. A bunch of singles with small business can push your sales across home plate as much as those occasional home runs.

The Keys
The key to your success with this target market is to position yourself as a small-business owner yourself who is attuned to the needs and challenges of growing a business because you're trying to do the exact same thing. You are a small-business specialties (I'd put it right on a set of your business cards) ready to offer your expertise in helping them build their business.
When I'm dealing with a small business, I break their potential promotional product needs down to three buckets:
- Staff/Employee Needs - What work-related branded apparel, head-wear or accessories do they need in doing their work; or what branded lifestyle apparel might they be interested in wearing away from the workplace?
- General Marketing Needs - branded premiums to increase their name exposure and impressions
Customer Reward Needs - gift with purchase or customer appreciation premiums that drive customer loyalty, sense or satisfaction and probability of repeat business.

This last bucket is especially important because this is where the small business can actually return on investment, which it probably isn't tracking with it's other marketing and advertising activities. We've all seen the industry studies that show empirically the positive effect that promotional products have on customer feedback, referrals and repeat business.

Face to Face
Obviously, with small business it's much easier to get face time with the decision maker. And that's important because small-business owners like personal attention. They want to feel they are being taken care of. I've done it both ways: hitting the streets and just cold calling small business in person asking for five minutes with the decision-maker, and cold calling on the phone. Either way, the message is the same:
"I'm a small-business owner in town like you and I see you have this _________ business. I like to do business with other small-business owners because we think alike and face the same challenges. My specialty is helping small businesses like yours. Can I have just a few minutes of your time?"

Package Deal
I'm a big proponent of going into these selling situations with opportunities for small-business owners to purchase packages of promotional products that address all three of my aforementioned buckets. I call them business-builder packages. They may be at various price points - $299, $399, $499 or $599. The owner doesn't have to choose from 10 or 12 different items. Here are multiple packages to choose from to just start out. Maybe there are some writing instruments and/or refrigerator magnets for general exposure; some hats or t-shirts for staff; and $3-$5 customer gift or appreciation items with higher perceived value. These packages are also positioned so there is a value component to them.

Obviously, I'm flexible and able to substitute items based on a customer's preference or type of business. But the package concept remains the same. I have found that many of my small-business customers like the package concept to begin with. It allows them to reap the benefits of products in different promotional categories and then narrow their focus going forward on the products they feel are the most effective for them.

The one challenge for traditional distributors in dealing with the small-business market is the competition against the online sellers that are so prevalent now with hundreds of products only a click away. There is certainly a generation of young people involved in small business who are quite comfortable with B-to-B commerce. But again, you need to brand yourself as that small-business specialist with expertise that you can offer from your own experience and your familiarity with your and your prospects local business environment. This expertise is a resource that an online seller can't match.

By: Pat Cavanaugh

API Staff Update

To all API Staff: API does have power at this time. Everyone should plan to report to work as usual in the morning. Check back for the most recent updates.

Thank you.
API

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1.800.507.7007

9 Facts Clients Need to Know before Purchasing Food Gifts

1. Convenience! Instead of sending an employee to the local store or having that employee spend hours on the internet trying to find the right gifts, clients can purchase food gifts from the same person who provides their promotional products and business gifts. Here at API we even take advantage of this resource. Every Christmas season we create to die for truffles in beautiful packaging to send out!

2. Gifts promote your and your client's company and brand, not ours. When someone opens their gift, the first thing they'll see if the logo you want them too.

3. Value driven pricing. Volume purchasing allows clients to purchase fine quality gifts for less than they would have to pay elsewhere.

4. Fresher gifts taste better (and say something nice about the sender)! Our gifts are packed-to-order just before the order is shipped, NOT made up many months in advance.

5. Our gifts are jam-packed full of the finest premium chocolates, fresh-roasted nuts and other gourmet treats. They are not filled with inexpensive fillers or fluff.

6. We can arrange for shipment to the client or directly to each recipient. We will even enclose their greeting or business card.

7. No catalogs or promotional literature will be included in your clients gifts.

8. We can build customized gifts to meet your clients needs, taste, promotion or budget.

9. No risk... because all gifts come with a 100% Money-Back Guarantee.

Visit www.apisource.com today to start planning your next fresh food promotion!

Ways to Play

Sorting through the variety of game and toy items

If there's one thing humanity takes seriously, it's leisure time. Looked at across cultures and age groups, there is an almost uncountable variation in human play, from retired and rich Massachusetts socialites playing a game of polo to a bunch of SoCal tween hoodlums fooling around with a pack of matches and "borrowed" lighter fluid for the first time. All along this long and varied scope of human play (the "polo-to-pyromania" span if you will), at every task and every game and every activity, there are about a billion different invented tools out there to help people with their fun.

Different mallets and stirrups for the same game of polo. Different matches and cross-state fireworks for the same harmless youthful pyromania. Human inventiveness has created so many tools and toys, drilling down to a ridiculous level of detail and ornate quality, all for the sake of having the maximum amount of fun. Awesome if you like having fun, sure, but certainly complicated if you're planning a promotional campaign involving play.

There are more kinds of toys than there are magazine pages in the world, but here are a few different types of toys along with some handy tips on how to best work with them. Because make no mistake, the only thing more serious than fun and games is when fun, games, marketing and money meet.

STUFFED ANIMALS
Capitalizing on the human need to look at and squeeze "cute wittly wubsy-bubsy" things, stuffed animals are excellent promotional toys perfect for a wide range of demographics and purposes.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR:
"The most important thing is how soft a plush animal feels," said Jenny Straub, director of marketing forVitronic Promotional Group, Mason, Ohio. "The 'fur' should not feel waxy or rough," she explained. She noted too that it can be worthwhile to request samples to check and see how an animal is stuffed. "There are different ways in which an animal can be stuffed," she said. "Some animals are stuffed heavier in the arms and legs, while others have more stuffing in their bellies or backsides."

A CASE STUDY:
Straub related an anecdote where one of Vitronic's stuffed animals, Tucker the bear, was used in a pinch to calm a panicked, elderly hospital patient. The 101-year-old mother-in-law of one of Vitronic's sales reps was seriously ill at the hospital and in need of an I.V. line. She was too uncooperative for the nurses to restrain and give an I.V. to, until the sales rep remember the stuffed animal he had in his car.

Quoted Straub, "Our rep said, 'When I gave Tucker to Lena [the mother-in-law], everything slowed down. The fighting stopped and the lab people did their work. Tucker stayed with her in the hospital for 10 days. The doctors and nurses commented on how this little bear made such a difference. Sometimes, we just think about the sale and forget the power of our products.'"

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING:
Versatility. "When you give plush, the pleasure the recipients feel transcends age, gender and nationality," said Straub. "Plush is versatile enough to show creativity, tenderness, friendliness and a sense of humor."

LIGHT-UP TOYS
Put a tiny blinking light in something and you've created a guaranteed human attention hook (see: goofy party bracelets, laser pointers and all of the best toy robots). Pair a blinking light with a toy, and now you've got something so entertaining it ruins the risk of wholly absorbing a person's consciousness.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR:
"First and foremost, distributors should only buy toys that are CPSIA-compliant and carry mercury-free batteries," said Michael Bistocchi, senior vice president, sales and marketing, CleggPromo, Gardena, Calif. He explained that it is also important to know how long you need the batteries for the lights to last. "Battery life is dependent on the number of lights and the length of activation every time it activates," he said. He also mentioned not to worry about bulb life, as most toys use L.E.D. lights. "L.E.D.s never burn out," he said. "Usually the toy or product is no longer used before the L.E.D.s stop working."

DEMOGRAPHICS TO CONSIDER:
"Kids love light up products in general," said Bistocchi. "Financial institutions, automotive companies and [high tech] are the biggest purchasers," he added.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING:
"Safety should be your first priority," stated Bistocchi. "The repercussions are far too extensive and everyone can potentially lose if an unsafe product gets into the wrong hands. It is definitely not worth the risk."

ARTISTIC TOYS
Maybe because the crushing despair of the 9-to-5 work grind hasn't wholly crushed their spirits yet, or maybe because their tiny minds are simple enough to be delighted by drawing a lumpy orange circle and passing it off as the sun, but kids love to draw. More than just crayons (though they certainly play a part), there are plenty of artistic toys out there to make the most of children's love of expressing themselves.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR:
"The first thing is always product safety," said Josh Goodelman, vice president of Liqui-Mark Corp., Hauppauge, N.Y. "Any product in general in the industry, keeping up to date with the new regulations the government's imposing, child safety laws, and having all the proper testing documents for nontoxicity and CPSIA-compliance is a serious issue."

A CASE STUDY:
Goodelman detailed a recent promotion Liqui-mark had done involving three companies promoting themselves together. Pairing decorated crayons with imprinted packaging and an insert card that told a story promoting two of the brands together, they were able to create an item that pleased all three companies. "The final product came out beautifully," said Goodelman. "We were able to get creative with custom packaging, and then it's simply taking a retail product and turning it into a promotional one."

A PROMOTION IDEA:
"Banks," said Goodelman. "Banks use crayons as incentive gifts. A child comes in and deposits 10 dollars in his or her savings account, they get a new crayon with the bank's logo printed on it," he explained. "It's enticing the child to continue to save money to get another crayon gift."