PRIVATE BUSINESS
The ‘Dark Arts’
The ‘Dark Arts’, thinking about your objectives and values. from your investment. Have a clear understanding of your values, and what kind of organisation you want to be when you ‘grow up’. Once you decide that, then the rest should naturally fall into place.
Columnist: Jayne Moore he ‘dark arts’ is simply a process to ensure you think about your objectives before you undertake any marketing, to ensure you get a return
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Values will shape the kind of customers and organisations you partner with, and the kind of people you recruit. In simpler terms, people buy from people who they feel are like them. Or, to quote PricewaterhouseCoopers Insurance 2020 Unleashing The Value From Values White Paper: “Creating a clear link between what the business wants to achieve, and the way people behave and make decisions, is at the heart of both effective cultural change and successful performance – unlocking the value from values.”
So, if you want to align yourself to a sector where your customers will buy from you because you share a similar value set, then mirror their positioning – offering a service or product that matches their values. This will help you win more of the kind of business that you want. Simple. Once you have your values, you will have a clearer understanding of your target customer. After that, what key messages will you want to share with them and where will you find them? More on that in the next issue. Jayne Moore, MD of Jayne Moore Media - to contact please call 0151 236 2879
Why has ‘sales’ become such a dirty word in business?
Columnist: Frank McKenna n order to grow your business there is one key thing above all others that you need to do – sell. And yet in businesses across the country the term ‘sales’ appears to have become a word that ought to be avoided at all costs.
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Instead, we talk about growth,
deals, winning customers, or – the classic – business development. At recent Downtown events across the North of England, I posed the simple question ‘Who employs sales staff?’ From aggregated audiences of over 300, only three hands went up. I then asked who employs Business Development Managers – there was a much healthier response. But why? In the majority of cases the main priority for BDMs is to sell. For some reason the UK has developed an aversion to salespeople. We think of a salesman as someone who is trying to blag us, rip us off, and sell us something we don’t really need. Sales in this country are caricatured by a Del Boy or an Arthur Daley. Few people admit to wanting a career in sales, preferring the fluffier Business Development or Marketing badges.
However, businesses only thrive if they are good at selling. In reality, there is an acceptance that selling is important. The most subscribed event during our recent Liverpool Business Week was the ‘sell more stuff’ session. Even so, we shy away from the term and as a result we are encouraging an army of marketers rather than a battalion of salesmen and women to infiltrate our businesses. We need to re-establish sales as a positive skill. Indeed, good salespeople are few and far between. Selling is becoming a dying art in this country. It needs to be front and centre of the nation’s drive for economic growth. Frank McKenna is the MD of Downtown in Business. Their Liverpool office can be reached on 0151 227 1633
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