101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 41:
TELL PEOPLE YOU’VE WON AN AWARD
Given that any sales persons needs to build a case, and that one huge reason to buy is not normally going to persuade everyone, you need to produce a weight of a case that is irresistible. Your product may only have a certain number of benefits, and it is difficult to create more (certainly without changing the product), but credibility factors are another matter. Not only may there be many things to add here, you may be able to take action to ensure that there are more
Idea
Lonely Planet travel guides ….
These guides are now well known and successful, but their start was not meteoric and at one time their future hung in the balance. The Lonely Planet Guide to India won the prestigious Thomas Cook Travel Guidebook Award. This might be called lucky, but the company did of course have to ensure that the book was good, and enter it so that it was considered for the award. One of the founders of the company, Tony Wheeler, was quoted as saying, “It took us to another level. It really opened doors and made a huge difference for us”. He was saying more than that the award was announced on the cover of the book: he was surely saying it was how the company used the fact that made the difference. You can imagine the enthusiasm with which the representatives of a comparatively new and small company included this fact in their sales presentation at that time.
Of course your product most likely is no contender for this award, but the amount of awards to be on is legion. A product and a sales pitch can benefit from anything, from the firm’s founder being “business person of the year” to award for technical excellence, quality, staff, customer service, and more. Many such awards are on an industry basis, while others are national, or local to a town or county.
In practice
- Find out what awards are open to your product or service, and how to go after them. (Suggest an application to management if it needs support.) A winning story can add to a winning case and enhance the sales presentation you make.