Branding Part One

Part One of a Speech on Branding.  The speaker is a friend called Alistair Mowat who specialises in Branding for the Pub and Hotel sector.  His business is called The Edinburgh Brewing Co. Ltd.  In a previous life he was the Branding Director for Scottish and Newcastle.   His advice here is suitable for all businesses.  The speech was given at the Airth Castle Hotel, Airth Falkirk.  Part two of the speech will be posted tomorrow, or it can be found on the company web site at www.kennedy-stewart.com   or by clicking the title for this post.

Dress Code for Making a Sale

How should you dress when you want to make a sale? There is no fixed rule for this, other than you must dress appropriately for the target audience that you are meeting.

Most business owners will tell you that you should dress appropriately to make yourself comfortable. And there is some truth in this, but not if it costs you sales.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Many years ago I ran and owned a couple of software consultancies that specialised in accounting software. I once had to hire a programmer. Interviewed a lot of people and there were two candidates that looked as though they could do the job. Now these guys were self employed and were effectively selling their time to me, as self employed businessmen.

Candidate number one was in a suite. Smart, tie and shirt. Well polished shoes. Now I am a qualified accountant, a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Selling accounting software at the time to big companies and my target decisions makers were also accountants, the company finance directors. So my company was laid out as though we were a firm of accountants and not a hip place like say the famous garages of the early days of the various iconic American Silicon valley computer companies.

Candidate number two was the proverbial programming hippie. Short sleeved shirt. Trainers. Pony tail for his hair. Almost unshaven as well. He thought that as a programmer he was hip and this showed in his attitude to the conversation we had when he came to present his credentials. I think the only thing that we did not have was a pair of sun glasses. But then again it was Scotland and in December.

Now this is a very obvious example and you know who get the sale. It may well be that the dress sense of the second candidate hid a much better programming skill. I will never know as I did not give him the chance to demonstrate by selling his time to me.

Of course had I been attempting to develop the iPod a decade prior to it's launch in my garage in Scotland, then the second chap would have got the sale. The point I am making is that your dress sense should be appropriate for the target audience.

And yes I think that you should make every attempt to smarten yourself up regardless. If the competition wears a Mark's and Spencer suite, then go spend an extra few hundred pounds and get a better more expensive suite.

Anyway that's all I have for now. Except to say that I love Mac's. This being written on the Mac Air and my iPod sitting beside it - so there if you thought I was just a boring Accountant.

Regards

mark.

When is an Advert a Waste of Money?

I have recently been looking at some newspaper adverts.  Every single one of them was in dire need of improvement!

Advertising can be very expensive.  And I am not going to say that  businesses should not advertise,  of course they should.  But unless the advert can meet the two following requirements then it is a waist of money:

• Lead to sales leads.   An advert in 99.99% of cases does not sell.  It's purpose is to generate sales leads which you can then sell to.
• The results must be measurable and quantifiable.  Simply put how many sales leads, cost per lead, profit per lead. Okay I admit to being an accountant as well.

If your advert does not meet these two rules then it should be stopped.  However if you are advertising and you suddenly stop and the sales drop then it is only the second rule that needs to change.

The advert itself in terms of it's content should follow a few basic rules.  Our organization has worked with people who have had response rates from adverts increase by as much as 1300%.

There are a few rules for constructing an advert which I am not going to go into in full detail just now.  But basically the advert should not be producing brand image type work,  it would be directed at a vertical market and aim to generate sales leads. It should not be a statement of who put the advert in place stating only what is done.  It should identify a target group of customers and provide them a with a benefit and a call to action.  The advert must also attract the attention of these customers and make them want to contact you.

So having construed the advert it should then be tested in a small scale before being rolled out.  Or if an existing advert the elements of this advert should be changed to meet the rules above.  This means that there must be a way to identify who has contacted you because of the advert.

This all sounds very easy,  but there is obviously a little more to it than I am writing here. I will write some specific notes on advertising in coming posts.

Cheers

Mark.

The Speeches for the Seminar on the 20th

I have just been reviewing our guest speakers speech for he event on the 20th.  I have to say that having read it I am looking forward very much to seeing it being delivered.

It is on the subject of Branding, and through the history of brands and from personal examples of his time with Scottish and Newcastle he shows the power of branding very effectively.  And when I say history I mean history lessons but from a branding perspective.

My speech is going to briefly touch on to areas,  marketing systems and advertising.  Most Adverts break one or more of four rules of advert layout.  These rules apply across all adverts in all mediums with slight variations for specific types of media.  If someone takes one of these adverts and applies al he rules repose rates ca increase by a factor of a thousand percent.  

Remember that the event will have a few other attractions.  Networking with local businesses.  A free copy of ACT software from one of our supporting local businesses and a free copy of my book.

Remember that it's RSVP and full details are in the previous post.  booking@kennedy-stewart.com

Cheers

Mark.

Marketing Seminar - How to Increase Sales in a Recession

Hi Folks

Just a short announcement for anyone in the Central Scotland area. On the 20th of January I am organising a seminar on "How to Increase Your Sales in a Recession". Full details below.

There will be two guest speakers, Alistair Mowatt who used to be the Brand Director for Scottish and Newcastle who will be speaking about Branding, and myself talking about advertising and general Marketing.

The Hosts for the event are Margret and David Smith. They own two franchises from the Bestof for Falkirk and Sterling. This is a local web site to find the best of, whether it is a tradesman or an estate agent.

There will be a couple of prizes in a draw, a copy of ACT software from a local Sage dealer Catrina who will also be attending with a table and lots of help at the event for people looking to use software to manage their contacts and sales leads.

John Stuart will also be there from utility Warehouse and showing you how to take on another product to sell to your customers.

Another prize draw will be from myself - a copy of my book "How to explode Profits Through Sales".

The event is in the evening, is RSVP and is also free before you ask. It is a chance to network and meet other business owners as well as hopefully get some meaningful advice on increasing your sales!

The event is at Airth Castle Hotel

Airth By Falkirk, FK2 8JF Falkirk 7 pm for 7.30 pm.

RSVP to: booking@kennedy-stewart.com

See you there.

Mark.

Hello and Welcome

Hello and welcome to the new blog called RapidResultsMarketing.biz

I am a licensee of an international Marketing group called Rapiresultsmarketing. Along with the other people who will be helping to post articles on this blog.

Steve Hall - part of my company, an ex salesman who sold in excess of one million pounds of business software per annam before joining this grouping. Software such as Microsoft's ERP software Navision.

Chris Redhead - a long standing friend of mine. Chris is also a licensee of Rapid Results Marketing. He is based in France and covers the south East coast of England. His background is in selling financial services.

Gareth Whipps is our resident expert in online marketing and is also a licensee of Rapid Results Marketing. Yes you are beginning to detect a common theme here?

And the purpose of this blog apart from promoting ourselves and our skills? Well you want me to be honest don't you? In essence we are going to offer up a combination of free advice, links and places to find marketing help, stories that will teach you what to do etc. You get the picture I hope.

As for myself? Well the name is Mark Kennedy-Stewart. I have about two decades experience is setting up small businesses and in direct sales and marketing. I have experience in Financial Services along with Chis, and software along with Steve.

Am I any good? Well let me tel you a small story. I was once offered a job to join a small computer sales company n my home city of Edinburgh to sell sage software. Like all salesman I was give a sales target. I met the first months target by 3 pm. I met the first years sales target by the end of the first week.

So introductions over, I look froward to your comments.

Mark.