Where people often screw up with sales and marketing is thinking that it's a "one-size-fits-all" type of approach One of the key drivers behind any sales and marketing effort is the identification of your target customer base You'll have a MUCH different approach and strategy if you're selling $29 connections vs. $199 connections vs. $999 connections
Here's a curious little tidbit -- a lot of you guys probably know that I'm currently in the distribution business, I sell cheap simple stuff (Mikrotik, Pigtails, etc) and expensive complicated stuff (Licensed Backhauls, Softswitches, Enterprise WiFi systems)...I train my sales people differently depending on their role and/or account focus... Regarding sales, a lot of emphasis is put on "closing techniques" and "objection handling" -- however, we have found that these skills and not uniformly applicable across all types of sales For example...when trying to sell a $99 Mikrotik board, where the benefits are readily apparent (it does a lot of stuff really cheap), "closing techniques" are beneficial b/c they force a decision and shorten the sales cycle (this is an efficiency play) -- why is this helpful, well, if the prospect can't figure out how good of a deal that $99 Mikrotik is within a few minutes, he's not going to figure it out anytime soon, and it's really not worth $99 (plus keep in mind I have a 5-7% average gross profit margin) to spend hours and hours educating someone on this On the other hand, when trying to sell a $75k VoIP softswitch, where the need is customized to the particular customer, "closing techniques" end up losing the sale b/c the benefits are not always readily available to the customer (and $75k is a much harder and more thought out decision to make than $99 =). In this regard, we actually focus our sales training more on "qualification" and "needs-benefit analysis" to (1) determine that this is something that the customer can actually use and (2) educate the customer on how this solution can help them save money, blah blah blah Apologies for my rambling, but I'm not really a morning person, but thought I'd just throw in my 2 cents... -Charles ------------------------------------------- WiNOG Wireless Roadshows Coming to a City Near You http://www.winog.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Peter R. Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 9:46 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Wireless ISP's Referral system. Marketing via door hangers and signs. PR. Guerrilla marketing. Smith, Rick wrote: >OK Marlon, how're you getting those customers to know about the choice >you offer ? > >As a guy who's promising investors around 500 customers / year, I'm >starting to look seriously into how to get those customers on board. > > -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
