Sales Strategies Need Creativity

No matter how many dollars you want to commit to your marketing budget, if your campaign doesn’t have a creative strategy you may as well throw those dollars away.

Domini Stuart looks at creative strategies that have been profitable in numerous ways and have cost little or nothing in advertising.

How’s business? If you’re just ticking along or feel stuck in a rut, it’s time for a creative marketing strategy. The place to start might be with your attitude to sales, an area many business owners loathe.

"Selling isn’t natural, and it brings up a lot of fears," says Karen Andrews, director of Shine Training Services. "We help clients to understand that selling isn’t about putting the hard word on someone, it’s about helping them to solve a problem.

"A lot of people get fired up by a kind of nervous energy when they’re trying to sell. They start spouting on and on about themselves when they should really be focusing on how they can be of benefit to whoever they’re talking to. We use the example of going to the dentist with a toothache. You’re not going to be interested in the history of dentistry, you just want someone to take the pain away. It’s the same with potential customers. All they want to know is how your product or service can help them."

Take a more creative approach to hiring someone to do the selling for you, too. "Most people have no idea that there are different types of salespeople," says Andrews. "For instance, a business development manager will actively hunt for business, while an account manager will service an account but will rarely cold-call. Employing the wrong one can be a devastating waste of money, but it isn’t always easy to spot the difference. Professional help could be a really sound investment." Done well, cold-calling can be very valuable, but it isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for success. Repeat sales and referrals can be a very effective and cost-efficient way of building a business, yet many business owners are reluctant to ask for them, perhaps because they fear looking pushy or, worse still, desperate.

Andrews believes that people love to help. "I put a flyer in every invoice I send out telling clients I’m looking for more business," she says. "I say that I’ll reduce the invoice if they give me a referral, and many people do. I also get a lot of business through networking. And I believe that the smartest way to build a business is to develop relationships with people who have natural synergies so you can send customers to each other. Accountants and financial planners do it all the time. And I have a strong reciprocal relationship with a friend in PR/marketing. We give each other at least a couple of referrals a month."