The Hindu Business Line : When customers look beyond price bookmark

The customer’s world has drastically and irrevocably changed, but the salesperson’s world has not kept up, fret Tom Snyder and Kevin Kearns in Escaping the Price-Driven Sale ( www .tatamcgrawhill.com).

The authors find that the customer no longer needs the salesperson to give product or service information; hence, information-gathering questions used in the past by salespeople to understand the customer’s business are no longer appropriate.

The book discusses four scenarios, collectively called ‘client insight creators,’ in which customers are willing to forego price concerns. The first is where the seller reveals to the buyer ‘an unrecognised problem that the buyer or the buyer’s organisation was experiencing.’

The second scenario is where the seller establishes ‘an unanticipated solution for the buyer’s problems,’ and the third is about ‘an unseen opportunity’ that the seller creates or reveals. The fourth and final scenario that the authors paint is of a seller who goes beyond being a vendor of products and services and instead serves as ‘a broker of strengths.’

Recommended reading to help you sell more, better.

Headline, the gateway

How to Get Clients to Come to You
Nigel Temple

The penultimate stage in the seven-stage system that Nigel Temple describes in How to Get Clients to Come to You ( www.vivagroupindia.com) is on producing effective copy using compellingwords. With the rise of the Internet as a communications tool, writing is a critical 21st-century marketing skill, says Temple.

“The headline is the most important item in a promotional piece,” he begins. “It is the gateway through which readers choose whether or not to enter. It carries your message into the readers’ minds. And it entices them to read the rest of your copy.”

On an average, five times as many people read the headline as they read the body copy, the author informs. “Advertising guru David Ogilvy was said never to have written fewer than 16 draft headlines for an advertisement.”

A ‘headline’ tip Temple offers is to use questions, because these engage the reader. Throughout your copy, write in the ‘language of benefits,’ so much so, “If you’re short of space, forget the features and focus on the benefits.” His counsel on how to end the copy is with a call to action, asking the reader to call a telephone number or send you an e-mail.

Quick takeaways.

Go hybrid

International Marketing Management: Text and Cases
U. C. Mathur

Three ‘culture’ options before companies with businesses worldwide is be global, multi-domestic, or hybrid, says U.C. Mathur in International Marketing Management: Text and Cases ( www.sagepublications.com). “In the global strategy, a firm can retain its home country’s culture in the different nations,” he explains. “In a multi-domestic strategy, the firm adapts its working style to the culture of the host country.”

The ideal, however, is to adopt a hybrid culture, the author suggests. For example, “the cola firms use the cultural ethos of the host country. They use local festivals to promote their products.”

The main area of understanding a country’s culture could prove to be its value system, advises Mathur. “What firms can do and cannot do in a country must be fully understood and appreciated not just by the managers operating in the host countries, but more importantly by the decision-makers in the home country.”

Comprehensive and well-presented.

D. Murali

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