Monday, March 28, 2011

Imitation is the Sincerest of Flattery

Charles Caleb Colton, (1780 - 1832), already said "Imitation is the sincerest of flattery", often misquoted as "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". This is correct also in the business world. Although, invention and ingenuity are crucial to most businesses, you don't have to "invent the wheel". Many times what you are trying to accomplish was already done by others and successfully so. Therefore, take the liberty to learn and to be inspired by what others have done. 
This is specifically relevant when we discuss design. 
When you are about to start designing or redesigning your website, catalog, and other brand elements, make sure to look at what your competition and other companies have done. If there is a market leader in your field that is also known for its design (Apple anyone?), make sure to look closely at the elements that make its branding. I do not encourage or propose copying or imitating, but being influenced and learning what make others successful is important and can save you a lot of time, resources, and costly mistakes. Make sure that you look at other companies work and write down what you like and what you dislike in the way they present the information to you. Look at their websites, do you like the cluttered ones or do you like the ones that are clean designed, do you like the ones that are using many colors or do you prefer the ones that are employing minimal use of colors. 
Same goes for other aspects of branding and marketing. One aspect that can be very important to your company might be the catalog. Make sure to look at other catalogs and note if the information is presented in concise way or did the company just tried to put in as much information as possible. Are the products in the catalog presented in a technical way or in a more consumer friendly way. 
Be aware that what might work in one industry might not work in a different industry. Each industry has its own standards and customer's expectations. 
While keeping the above in mind, remember, the design of your branding elements should be unique to your company and should reflect the idea behind your company or product. 

Monday, March 21, 2011

Make Sure Everyone on Your Team Has the Information They Need

In my past I had to manage the sales force of a startup company that was spread over 3 continents. If you worked for a small company and needed to manage information between several locations you know that getting the information from one place to the other and keeping it synchronized can be a a frustrating and a painstaking job.
That is why I want to recommend a very powerful, yet simple, tool that can help you organize the information between different locations effortlessly. And since this tool is free it is perfect for small enterprises and startup companies, even though I used it also in much bigger companies. The tool I'm referring to is the Google Docs web based application.
Google Docs give you the option to use its "Office" like web based applications from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet access and a Google account (in case you don't have a Google account, you can open one in a few minutes). The Google Docs applications include a word processing application ("Word" like), a spreadsheets application ("Excel" like), a presentation application ("PowerPoint" like), and a form maker application.
However, to an enterprise that has MS Office, all of the above still doesn't carry an added value. However, the real added value of Google Docs is that it lets you effortlessly corroborate and share your documents with other people.An example can be found in a case where you want to share a potential customer list between all your sales people, so they can see the association of different accounts with each of the sales team members as well as to see if they can help each other with certain accounts. In this case all you have to do is to open an appropriate spreadsheet on Google docs and allow each member of the team to view it. Furthermore, if the circumstances are right you can give authorization to one, few or all members to make changes to the spreadsheet. However, it is important to emphasis that only members that you, as the originator, gave permission to can view or make changes to the document. It is important to clarify that Google docs documents are not open to the public and are private documents.
Moreover, if more then one person are watching the document the system allows them to see who is online watching the document at any given time as well as to see any changes made to the document in real time. Therefore, you can have your sales team, or just the sales manager update the spreadsheet in real time and have all the members see the changes as they occur.
Another example, is where you can have a presentation opened and then have several people working on  it at the same time as they discuss and make the changes in real time. Just think how much time and back and forth of email exchange you can save with this!
Another great feature of Google Docs is that it lets you import other documents already made on your computer with programs such as MS Office to the Google Docs application. Therefore, if you already have a document made with Excel, Word or PowerPoint you can just use the import function and start working on it with Google Docs.
Nonetheless, like almost any other application out here, Google Docs comes with its own faults. Some examples include the limitation on the size of embedded images within documents (currently 2MB) and the limitation on the overall size of a document (currently 1GB). Granted, these faults will not effect most users but they are still there.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Return Merchandise Authorization - RMA

In many companies one might be asked for the RMA procedure. Simply put, the RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) procedure defines the terms, conditions and procedures that need to be taken when a company or an individual want to return a product to the seller for either, replacement, refund or repair .  

Monday, March 14, 2011

Definition of Above the Line (ATL) and Below the Line (BTL) Marketing

A few days ago, I was asked by an associate what is the difference between Above the Line (ATL) and Below the Line (BTL) Marketing techniques. 


In the business environment there are several interpretations to ATL and BTL. However when we discuss marketing approaches the meaning is, to put it simply, to define the marketing and sales activities that the company is engaged in to sell its products.


These two techniques use the line as the differentiation point between marketing activities that are considered as mass marketing, ATL marketing, and marketing activities that are focused at a specific individuals according to the individuals needs and requirements. 


The success of ATL activities is usually measured in brand recognition, rather then in increase in revenues.Examples for ATL activities are mass advertising, such as TV and radio advertisement, printed advertisement in traditional printed channels, etc. 


BTL activities are usually easier to measure, and translate into monetary values, then ATL activities. Now days, due to increase costs of traditional media, and the increase in buying decision made on impulse, many companies are engaging in BTL activities. BTL activities can be defined as all marketing activities that target specific individuals at a very specific location. An example for a BTL is a coupon dispenser on a pharmacy shelf where the customer is making the buying decision. Another example for BTL that can be found in retail environments is when brand representatives on the retail floor offering trials for new products of the brand.


Both ATL and BTL has justification for deployment and a company must recognize its marketing goals and budget when deciding weather to use ATL, BTL, or  as usually is the decision, a mix of the two.                

Friday, March 11, 2011

Euroshop Fair Düsseldorf Germany

Hi All,


Last week I had the opportunity to be part of a company that exhibited at the Euroshop Fair in Düsseldorf, Germany (http://www.euroshop-tradefair.com/). To those of you who are part of the retail industry and are not familiar with this event, I strongly recommend following it. The event takes place every 3 years and is the world's largest retail trade show.
This year over 106,000 visitors came to the event over the 5 days it took place. 


I was amazed by the amount of people and quality leads we got during the show. At times we were 12 people from the company and still we couldn't help all the people that stopped by.  


Most importantly, if you decide to exhibit in Euroshop make sure you regard it as the "Academy Award" of all trade showaround your budgets. There were too many companies that didn't put enough effort in presenting their products and ideas and therefore didn't get the attention they wanted, or were just overshadowed by other companies with more impressive booths.


Like with every trade show that you exhibit in, define clearly what you want to achive, look at the competiotion, build a unique concept and build it around your budget. However, I will dedicate a whole post to trade show visibility and exhibition in a different post.



Thursday, March 10, 2011

Welcome to Sales, Marketing, and Beyond

My name is Dorian Shifman, and since 1996 I have been a sales, marketing, and business development professional. My goal here is to offer you, the reader, a location where you can find a wealth of information to help you with your business activities. I have specialized in distressed businesses and in businesses that are looking for revision and growth. I have been down in the tranches as a sales and marketing guy and worked my way to the CEO position.
Please read, think and share with me your thoughts.

Dorian Shifman    
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