Sales Tuieng

Just about sales information

An Alternative To Venture Capital In The Food And Beverage Industry

If you are an entrepreneur with a small food or beverage company looking to take it to the next level, this article should be of particular interest to you. Your natural inclination may be to seek venture capital or private equity to fund your growth, but that might not be the best path for you to take. We have created a hybrid M&A model designed to bring the appropriate capital resources to you entrepreneurs. It allows the entrepreneur to bring in smart money and to maintain control.

We have taken the experiences of a beverage industry veteran, a food industry veteran and an investment banker and crafted a model that both large industry players and the small business owners are embracing.

I recently connected with two old college mates from the Wharton Business School. We are in what we like to call, the early autumn of our careers after pursuing quite different paths initially. John Blackington is a partner in Growth Partners, a consulting firm that advises food and beverage companies in all aspects of product introduction and market growth. You might say that it has been his life’s work with his initial introduction to the industry as a Coke Route driver during his college summer breaks.

After graduation, Coke hired John as a management trainee in the sales and marketing discipline. John grew his career at Coke and over the next 25 years held various positions in sales, marketing, and business development. John’s entrepreneurial spirit prevailed and he left Coke to consult with early stage food and beverage companies on new product introductions and strategic partnerships.

Sales Funneling – A Marketers Guide

Sales people often feel that all marketing needs to do is to drive loads of leads their way. If this is the approach in your organisation, then you are missing sales and lowering potential profitability. Careful management of the tone and quantity of your marketing content across a planned sales funnel can deliver pre-qualified leads to a sales person, significantly improving the chances of conversion.

Many of us will have experienced a sense of ‘information overload’ where we simply switch off, or the frustration of wanting to know more about a product or service before we commit and not being able to find it. Both happen regularly, and when they do – you’ve lost a sale.

For almost every purchase we make, we run through a broadly similar decision-making process (I say almost, as the impulse bar of chocolate at the supermarket counter is quite a different process). Typically, and particularly for more complex purchases, our thinking will go something like this: ‘My laptop is heavy – I saw that ad for really light weight ones, who was it again?’ (Latent need); ‘There’s that ad, it’s X-brand’ (Awareness); ‘I’ll just check out their site’ (Interest); ‘Hmm, well the weight certainly compares well, but can I afford it, what are the other options?’ (Evaluation); ‘I’ll pop into Y-shop to see what it feels like and ask a little more about it’ (Trial); ‘I’ve researched the best price, I’ll get it from there’ (Purchase). Kotler and others have spelt out various different versions of this process, there’s bound to have been one modelled for most markets. By understanding the way people make buying decisions, you can map your sales funnel: 1. Awareness, 2. Interest, 3. Evaluation, 4. Trial, 5. Purchase.

Against this process you should map and measure your sales funnel, you’ll steadily whittle down your audience at each step, with interested parties moving through the funnel and those who either don’t want what you offer or who are turned off by your messaging going elsewhere. To maximise the conversion at each stage, marketers should consider two key elements; tone and quantity.

How To Take A Slow Sales Season Head On

Slow sales seasons occur in virtually every industry, whether its during the summer when everyone heads to the beach, or during the holidays when everyone spends time with family. To keep the momentum going, you can utilize these proven tactics to ensure that your sales team makes the most of this downtime.

Sales Incentives

There are a few tactics you can employ to increase your sales sales incentives being chief among them. If youre trying to grow during a slow sales cycle, consider offering sales incentives to representatives for meeting their quota during slow months, or for bringing in the most sales. This will increase their motivation levels and will help point your sales in a positive direction.

Seasonal Sales

Electronic Cigarette Timeline

E-Cigarettes: A Brief Timeline

Electronic cigarettes are basically a new phenomenon in the United States, and a lot of people (including smokers) still have not heard about them. But they have been around for years in other parts of the world.

Here is a brief timeline of the electronic cigarette (e-cig for short):

2003 – Beijing based SBT Co. registered a patent for the first e-cig.

Why Smartphones Are Popular

Cell phones have gained considerable popularity in the world. It is not surprising that it is the one gadget that accompanies more and more people. While many people still use cell phones as originally designed for making and receiving calls, a greater segment of society is beginning to see it as an instrument for productivity. For this reason, cell phones are constantly evolving to meet the new demands of society

Cell phones have over the years evolved into minicomputers or smartphones. For example, in 2008 for which data was available, out of the 1 billion camera phones shipped, smartphones which currently represent the high-end of the cell phone market, made up about 10% of the market or about 100 million units. Current smartphone brands on the market include BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm, Nokia and Samsung. These products are an- Internet-connected multimedia devices with a multi-touch screen or a sliding keyboard. The phones may function as a camera phone, portable media player, GPS navigator, and an internet client: with text messaging, email, web browsing and local Wi-Fi connectivity.

Interestingly, the rise in sales of smartphones will come at the expense of declining cell phone sales, currently 90% of the market. The bourgeoning of the smartphone market is much about the new technology as it is about the consumer. The smartphone- basically a pocket computer with cell phone capability-allows people to carry information and to access it everywhere they go. Just as portable lap top computers permitted desk-top users freedom of mobility, the smartphone allows its users the function of a desk-top PC with the portability of a laptop, and the utility of a cell phone.

It is to be expected that in every economic down turn people will shy away from luxury consumer spending such as the purchase of a smartphone. Rather, more and more people are opening up their wallets to smartphones. To be sure, the sales of iPhones, Blackberrys and other smartphone models are rising rapidly. It is estimated that smartphones will grow by 25% this year alone. Other new models have either come on the market or are expected to be launched during the course of this year. These new additions will certainly help to fuel the popularity and growth of the smartphone industry.

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