Training salesmen in the new product line

Training salesmen in the new product line
The next step was to teach our sales force about the new
products we had just added. There were just under 2,000
products in the new line. How did we do it? By making it
as easy and painless as possible. The perfect solution?
Television!

Cadillac Plastic and "Chemical Company is a manufacturer of
products and a distributor of products of other suppliers.
When our suppliers were in town for the Safety Products
premiere, we asked representatives from each company to
make a half-hour product presentation in our videotape
studio. These were duplicated and then sent to our
district offices throughout the country. Backup in the
form of supplier literature was also included.

By watching the product tapes on TV in a relaxed, informal
atmosphere, learning about the new products was practically
painless for our salesmen. The tapes could be stopped at
any time and replayed for greater comprehension. Later,
when our salesmen reviewed the supplier literature, they
were already familiar with the product so the literature
was more meaningful and retention of learning much greater.

Subsequent visits by suppliers rounded out the initial
training program and gave the sales force a chance to ask
questions' not covered in either the videotapes or the
literature.

Was this approach successful? An informal poll of our
suppliers found that they were extremely impressed by how
quickly our people had mastered their products. All
suppliers have since made additional videotapes to update
our sales force.

Motivating our salesmen to sell: a triple purpose catalog

At this point, our people were knowledgeable about the
OSHA-Spec line. Now came the big test. Could they sell the
products?

To motivate our people, we again decided to make selling
the products as easy as possible. First, we made sure that
our top-quality products were competitively priced. And,
of course, we made sure we had reasonable inventory levels
to assure good delivery. But beyond this, which is simply
sound business practice, we found aids which were
indispensable in making it easy for our salesmen to sell.

Most important of all aids was our safety products catalog.
We made this extremely attractive. But even more
important than its beautiful appearance, the catalog was a
solid selling tool.

Because many of our customers were confused and concerned
about the then-newly-passed OSHA laws, we organized our
catalog around the most common OSHA requirements that our
products fulfilled. Wherever applicable, we quoted right
from the OSHA directive. This helped our customers to
learn the most common safety requirements. It also helped
salesmen in organizing their sales presentations. The
customer could clearly see what products were required to
protect his workers and plant.

To make the catalog easy to follow, we relied heavily on
pictures and illustrations. After all, many of these
products were hew to everyone. Where color coding was a
factor, according to OSHA, as in certain signs and warning
devices, we printed that section in full color. Certainly,
it was more expensive. But it made our catalog a reference
source as well. We also tried, where possible, to show the
products in actual use. Again, it is easier to recognize a
need when one can see how the product is used.

To sum up the benefits of an-attractively designed,
intelligently organized selling catalog, let me offer this
advice. If you have to skimp on a budget, do it anywhere,
repeat anywhere, but on your catalog. It is that important
to your overall success.

----------------------------------------------------
Thotsaporn is the owner of http://www.financeoffer.org
where he provides finance information and resources.

Train Your Brain With a New $225m Gaming Market Based on Latest Research on Brain Health and Fitness

Train Your Brain With a New $225m Gaming Market Based on Latest Research on Brain Health and Fitness
A spate of recent news coverage on brain fitness and "brain
training" reflects a growing interest in natural,
non-drug-based interventions to keep our brains sharp as we
age. This interest is very timely, given the aging
population, increasing Alzheimer's rates, and soaring
health care costs that place more emphasis than ever on
prevention and changing lifestyle.

This past Tuesday, the MIT Club of Northern California, the
American Society on Aging, and SmartSilvers sponsored an
event on The Emerging Brain Fitness Software Market:
Building Better Brains to explore the realities and myths
of this growing field. Before the panel, I had the chance
to present an overview of the state of the Brain Fitness
Software Market.

Why are we talking about this field at all? Well, for one,
an increasing number of companies are achieving significant
commercial success in packaging "brain exercise". An
example is the line of Nintendo games, such as Brain Age
and Brain Training, that have shipped over 15 million units
worldwide despite limited scientific support, since 2005.
What is less visible is that a number of companies and
scientists are partnering to bring products to market with
a more solid clinical validation. We estimate the US
market was $225m in 2007 (growing from $100 in 2005).
Wheras K12 Education used to be the major segment, adult
consumers are responsible for most of that growth: we
estimate the consumer segment grew from a few million in
2005 to $80 m in 2007.

Who is buying these products? Yes, of course, many adults
over 50 who want to protect their memory are among the
pioneers. 78 million baby boomers are eager to try new
approaches. A growing number of retirement communities and
nursing homes are offering programs to their residents to
expand their usual fitness and social activities. And we
can't forget about K12 education: certain brain fitness
software packages have shown they can help kids who have
dyslexia and related difficulties.

Is there science behind these claims? Do these products
work? It depends on how we define "work". If "working"
means quantifiable short-term improvements after a number
of weeks of systematic "brain training" to improve specific
cognitive skills, then the answer is that a number of
programs do seem to work. If , on the other hand, "working"
means measurable long-term benefits, such as better overall
brain health as we age, or lower incidence of Alzheimer's
symptoms, the answer is that circumstantial evidence
suggests they may, but it is still too early to tell.

Are there any public policy implications? We certainly
believe that there are. The Center for Disease Control
recently partnered with the Alzheimer's Association to
develop a comprehensive Cognitive Health roadmap to better
guide research efforts and improve public education on the
lifestyle habits that every proud owner of a brain could
benefit from following. Given the high rates of traumatic
brain injuries and stress disorders found in a large number
of the men and women coming home from the Iraq war, the
military is investing heavily in research to help identify
problems to develop tools to solve them, and we expect that
research will translate into wider health applications. No
presidential candidate, to our knowledge, has directly
addressed his or her priorities in the cognitive health
realm but, given the growing importance and economic impact
of brain-related disorders, we expect that to happen soon.

What are some trends that executives and investors should
be looking at to understand this growing market? Let me
make a few predictions:

1) An increased emphasis on Brain Maintenance, from
retirement communities to gyms and health clubs. Will
health clubs one day offer brain fitness programs, and
perhaps "brain coaches"? We think so.

2) Better and more widely available assessments of
cognitive function will enable of all us to establish an
objective baseline of how our minds are evolving, identify
priorities for "workouts" and lifestyle interventions, and
help us measure progress. Science-fiction? Not really.
there are already pretty good tests used in clinical and
medical environments, the challenge will be to refine and
package those assessments in a consumer-friendly way.

3) We will see more and better computer-based tools, each
of which may be more appropriate to work on specific
priorities. Just as we find a variety of machines in health
clubs today, in the future we can expect different programs
tailored to train specific cognitive skills.

4) More non-computer based tools will also provide much
value. There is more and more research on how meditation
and cognitive therapy, to mention 2 examples, can be very
effective in literally re-wiring parts of the brain.

5) Insurance Companies will introduce incentives for member
who want to follow brain fitness programs. Perhaps even
companies will offer such programs to employees to attract
and retain mature workers who want access to the best and
the latest innovations to keep their minds sharp.

Now, this being a pretty new field, many questions remain
open. For example, how will consumers and institutions
receive quality information and education to navigate
through the emerging research and the overwhelming number
of new programs, separating reality from hype?

In summary, what were the main take-aways from the event?

1. Research indicates that a number of cognitive abilities
(attention, memory...) can be assessed and trained

2. An emerging market is starting to develop-growing from
an estimated $100m in 2005 to $225m in 2007, in the US
alone-, and is poised to keep growing at significant rates.

3. Many companies are currently selling products direct to
consumers (as well as through institutions) with sometimes
unclear claims - this threatens to confuse consumers and
present a major obstacle to the growth and credibility of
the sector.

If you are interested in this rapidly growing field, please
stay tuned! There are fascinating research reports every
month.

----------------------------------------------------
Alvaro Fernandez is the CEO and Co-Founder of
SharpBrains.com, which will release the report "The State
of the Brain Fitness Software Market 2008" on March 4th.
SharpBrains has been recognized by Scientific American
Mind, Newsweek, Forbes. Alvaro holds MA in Education and
MBA from Stanford University, and teaches The Science of
Brain Health at UC-Berkeley Lifelong Learning Institute.
You can learn more at http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog

Sell the salesman

Sell the salesman
Flagrant errors in managing a sales force are easy to
discern. What may be harder to spot are the subtle
mistakes or oversights that can be just as
counter-productive to profit-making and sales force
motivation.

The profit and motivational value in treating salesmen as
though they were your best customers is illustrated in a
recent experience I had when my firm provided sales and
marketing management consultation services for a new
manufacturer of high-priced radial tires.

The tires are exceptionally good, and the manufacturer knew
that the large United States and European firms were
squeezing the profit margins of the independent tire
dealers. So, the tire producer came up with an obvious
solution. It offered independent tire dealers the best
profit margin in the industry and a completely protected
territory. In order to give the dealers this break, the
firm explained that as a new tire manufacturer it couldn't
afford a gigantic advertising and promotion budget. The
tire firm had to rely on the retail salesman at the point
of sale, and the independent tire dealer, to make the tire
a success.

Sounds good? Well, it was good. The tire dealers,
battered from their continuing profit erosion battle with
the large tire producers, were wildly enthusiastic. They
ordered the tires and waited for the expected consumer
demand.

But that demand never came. The manufacturer and I had
made a crucial mistake we failed to realize that we must
sell the salesman before we can get him to sell the
customer. Fortunately, we discovered our mistake in time.
We saw that we could not expect customers to buy tires
unless our dealers' salesmen were sold on them first unless
those salesmen were fully aware of the product's benefits.
In other words, we found we must sell the salesman as if he
were our customer, our best customer.

We had no difficulty selling the dealer. He knew he was
being profit squeezed and needed a way out. But he assumed
that because he made an excellent decision to buy our tires
his salesmen would jump on the band wagon, too. That was a
fallacy. Napoleon was once asked who ruled France. "Ten
thousand file clerks," he replied. The same with
selling. The bosses at the dealerships ruled in their
domains, and were 100% for us. But until their store
managers and salesmen were educated and enthusiastic. We
had sold the boss, but the real test was whether our client
could get reorders, and that depends on the dealers'
salesmen.

So, here's what we did. First, we went back to the dealers
and explained to their salesmen what was happening in the
tire industry regarding the profit squeeze. Their bosses
never wanted Co bother them with that information. We
explained Chat their salary, their year-end bonus, and
their livelihood depended on the margin that their sales
generated. Because the big tire manufacturers reach the
consumer directly via huge television advertising budgets,
they can force a cut in the dealers' profit margin. That's
great for those tire producers but terrible for the
independent tire dealers.

----------------------------------------------------
Thotsaporn is the owner of http://www.linefinance.org where
he provides finance information and resources.

The 7 Most Marketable Skills for the Job Market

The 7 Most Marketable Skills for the Job Market
While each employer and every different company is looking
for specific things in its candidates, there are certain
skills that every employer require. These are the qualities
and traits that make you successful in a professional
environment, no matter what type of company or business you
work for, no matter whether your job is corporate or
creative.

Here is a list of the top 7 marketable skills that
employers are actively looking for in potential new hires:

1)Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Being
able to express yourself articulately is essential in the
corporate world (and in every aspect of life!)

2)Able to build strong relationships. Companies want to
hire people who get along well with other people. Show that
you're a friendly person who has great interpersonal skills
who enjoys being part of a team and contributing to group
efforts.

3)Great work ethic. Employers want to hire people who will
work long hours if necessary, put in extra time, and not
complain. They want candidates with integrity and who take
pride in their work. What they don't want are candidates
who are simply looking to work 9-5 without any flexibility.

4)Computer-savvy. In this day and age you've got to know
how to use a computer if you want to succeed in business.
Put yourself a step ahead of the competition by creating a
list on your resume of all the computer programs you're
comfortable with and use regularly.

5)Problem-solving abilities. No job is without its bumps in
the road. Employers want to know that you will be able to
handle whatever comes your way with grace under pressure,
and that you are capable of dealing with difficulty on your
own if necessary.

6)Creativity. Employers want employees who can offer
creative solutions to common problems. Being able to think
outside the box is a huge plus, because it will help the
company get ahead of its competition. Creativity can
involve ingenious solution to save money, an artistic
flair, or anything else that makes you stand out as unique.

7)Punctuality. Time is money, and being on time shows
respect for others. Lateness (especially to interviews) is
something no employer wants, and it may be the cause of an
immediate rejection, no matter how great your other
qualities are. The employer won't want to take a chance on
an employee who may keep the client waiting!

Now that you know what's important to employers, make a
point of either listing them on your resume or writing them
up as part of your cover letter so that employers will know
you actually possess them! All you have to do is turn each
skill into a bullet point:

*Excellent written and verbal communication skills; superb
communicator who gets along very well with other team
members and superiors.

----------------------------------------------------
Ken Anczerewicz is an author and publisher devoted to
providing time & money saving resources designed to help
career & job seekers of all ages achieve their financial
goals. You can check out his best recommendations for
creating your own income stream by clicking here now:
http://www.resourceriver.com