Incentives And Rewards: Why This Isn’t Just About Laundry Detergent?
Ladies & gentlemen do you remember the earlier blog post (and or) video about the super successful entrepreneur (originally) from Canada, that started off as a dead dog broke outside sales rep?
This young (and extremely ambitious) outside sales rep, was going door to to door way back in the late (50’s and early sixties.) Trying in vain to convince (mostly young house wives and grand mothers why them needed to buy his companies vacuum cleaners.
And as rumor has it, he not only wasn’t doing to good initially, but because of the commission structures back then. And because of the fact that try as he may, was only closing on average about one out of every ten prospects he managed to complete an entire presentation with.
But all that changed in a major way! (Not overnight mind you.) But still in all, (rumor has it) that after watching a popular game show on TV this enterprising young man was hit with a jolt of marketing inspiration! And the course of his life was forever changed!
How A Once Struggling Young Outside Sales Rep Strategically Used Incentives And Rewards To Literally Make A Fortune!
(How You Can Too!)
The marketing inspiration this young entrepreneurial minded, think outside the box sales rep had, was that like the popular game show. He would find a creative and hopefully non expensive approach, to rewarding (ethically bribing) his ideal prospects. In exchange for being allowed to complete his entire presentation.
Here’s what this enterprising young man eventually came up with. After testing and tracking a few different ethical bribes.He finally got it right in a major (money making ) way!
He found a fairly unknown (translated) up and coming aggressive. And fairly new laundry detergent company that was trying to compete with their better financed major competitors.
After much B2B negotiation, the laundry detergent company initially gave the sales reps company limited small samples of laundry detergent, (aka) the ethical brides. To their top sales reps to offer their prospects. In exchange for allowing them 30-45 minutes to complete their presentations.
And the net result for this struggling young Canadian, was he rather quickly went from closing ten percent of his prospects, to consistently closing a whopping 40%! A mere 400% increase in sales productivity!
Maybe It’s Just Your Lack Of Marketing Creativity Which Is Actually Holding You Back!
And within a matter of just a few years, his sales productivity allowed him to quickly rise through the ranks! He went from district manager, to regional sales manager to ultimately the companies most celebrated national sales director!
He then went on (of course) within a ten year period to author numerous, (internationally) received mega best selling books on salesmanship and leadership etc. He created numerous extremely profitable one to five day offline workshops, sales conferences, (which today) are more affectionately referred to as boot camps!
He recorded and easily sold cassette training programs and ended up a self made multi millionaire (many times over.) And started routinely being invited to be the keynote speaker (all over the world) at major sales conferences! The end!
Yes this savvy and extremely dynamic sales rep turned entrepreneur extraordinaire, initially used the tried and true ethical bribe approach, in order to secure more presentation opportunities.
After The Initial Sale That’s When The Really Profitable Marketing Process Begins!
(Don’t You Agree?)
But here’s part B to this -proven- long term marketing approach. The savvy up start laundry detergent company (not speculating) on whether they did or didn’t! They could have initially inexpensively tested a couple of long term money making approaches, to strategically lock in some long term profits! Say what?
A.) They could have provided each prospective first time new customer that initially got their small sample from one of the outside sales reps. They could have included one of those special hole punch type of coupons.
So that each time they purchased a new box of laundry detergent, (a certain size only mind you,) from one of the local participating super markets, they save a certain percentage each time, until their last or twelfth purchase is free!
B.) Or they could inexpensively test the aforementioned approach against, including an insert alerting their buyers to a free monthly drawing, where each month, one of their customers wins a brand new state of the art washer and dryer. And three years worth of the companies laundry detergent to boot! (Rest assured a promotion like that will most definitely get some lips flapping.)
What type of highly targeted customer list would that type of promotion built? Can you say potentially profitable list swapping joint venture possibilities? They build that highly targeted list and start periodically surveying those housewives and grandmothers etc.
There Are More previously Untapped Marketing Possibilities Than You Could Ever Possibly Hope To Realistically Take Advantage Of!
And they would have discovered a world of additional products and services to market to those customers in the future! Don’t you agree? That’s the real long term possibilities and untapped marketing opportunities, involved in strategically leveraging incentives and rewards! Can you really argue with that?
Please list at least two simple spin off concepts (in the comments section below) that you can apply to your business, product or service in the next 30 days or less!
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