teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Zappo’s and its founder Tony Hsieh are on a roll.  The company is highly successful by having customers at the focus of its operations.  Hsieh’s recent book, Delivering Happiness is on best seller lists.  The book is on my “to-read” list.  The company continues to grow rapidly, even during the current economic slowdown.  The man is onto something — and it is worth sharing some of his ideas with your class.  The company is renowned for customer service, which we cover in the selling and sales management chapter — so there is a great fit with this video.

This articles “Rediscovering the art of selling,” (McKinsey Quarterly, October 2010)  provides some good ideas and suggestions about improving sales in retail stores.  The article points out that perhaps too many retailers have cut back on personal selling efforts — perhaps falsely assuming customers have already researched purchases before entering stores.  It points out the importance of having enough well-trained salespeople.  This online interactive – making the sale – provides some additional example.

The article also points out  merchandising opportunities driven by understanding consumer needs and behavior.   Pointing out how a major bath care chain organized products by scent rather than function following insights about consumer behavior.  Sales increased when they set up a “Vanilla” section for example.

The article provides a nice supplement to a class on personal selling, sales management, or retailing.

Lexmark International is one of the world’s leading makers of computer printers had a problem.  While slow to come around, the trend to the paperless office is real.  That trend significantly reduced demand for printers.  So Lexmark adapted — and offers its customers services to help them print less.  Lexmark helped Coca Cola save $11 million over five years — and sold them 3800 new mostly Lexmark printers.

This article, “After a Jam, Lexmark Turns to Services” (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 26, 2010) provides examples for use when talking about goods and services or the product life cycle — as printers settle well into market maturity stage.  It is also interesting to think about this change in the context of personal selling — where Lexmark no doubt had to change its personal selling strategy to a consultative selling approach.

Many of us are familiar with the old “Man in the Chair” ad (if not, link to the blog post first).  It does a nice job of demonstrating integrated marketing communications and how in business markets, advertising works in combination with personal selling.  I saw this post at Mac Macintosh’s Sales Lead Insights blog that brought this point back home to me (click on the ad in the blog to see if full size).   One of the comments on the blog post pointed me to this great presentation (see below) by Ralph Oliva at a Business Marketing Association event.  It is a bit long (5:41), but might make a nice video to show when discussing organizational buying — or for an example of IMC in the B2B context.  It updates the “Man in the Chair” ad — but also shows how the core marketing concepts have not changed.  To fully appreciate this, I suggest you check out the blog post first and click on the ad to see if full size.  Then watch the video below.

Telemarketing tends to get a bad rap.  Yes, I have added myself to the “no call” list to keep my dinner hour undisturbed less disturbed.  But for B2B, well run telemarketing programs can be a key part of a strategy.  When the right customers are targeted, the business buyers are happy to talk to a supplier.  And for sellers, telemarketing (or inside sales) can be an efficient and effective method to generate leads for an outside sales force or close sales and service smaller customers.  This article, “Case Study:  Hewlett-Packard division uses outbound telemarketing for lead generation” (BtoB, January 4, 2010) provides an example of the success HP is having with such a program.

Do you sometimes have trouble keeping those non-marketing majors awake in the intro class?  One of the challenges of the introductory marketing class is motivating non-marketing majors (typically 75% or more of the class).  While this class is even more important for them — it will likely be their only marketing class — they are usually not intrinsically motivated by marketing.  My friend Tom Boyd (Cal State Fullerton) told me that early in the semester he brings in non-marketing businesspeople as guest speakers.  I tried that this semester, and taught the cross-functional chapter in Basic Marketing (chapter 20) in the second week of class.  It worked and my non-marketing majors were more motivated all semester.  A blog post from Vivek Wadhwa on the TechCrunch blog describes why IT managers need selling skills – “It’s All About Selling for Survival.” While this post targets IT people, it really fits with anyone who will eventually be in management in any functional area.  I am going to assign this reading next time I teach the class.