Tips Guides

Unlike virtually any other marketing tool, cold calling lets companies change courses at almost any time.

In today’s ever-changing business environment, this flexibility is critical.

Companies new to cold calling must watch early results closely.

Testing, assessing, and refining the program from the onset are critical first steps. These actions can result in a long term program that produces a predictable stream of sales opportunities.

Veteran cold callers also must work. Constant attention is needed to keep the program sharp. Here’s a recommendation: continue with the program that works, but apply a portion of your tele-prospecting investment towards testing new approaches that may surpass your existing model. When you find one that is more effective, replace your existing program, but continue to test new approaches.

It’s easy to test and change cold calling campaigns. Unlike print ads, radio spots, billboards, or most other marketing vehicles, cold calling programs make testing and applying those results to the program easy.

Here are some of the items that every program should assess:

1) The offer. Do you want to set a sales appointment? Do you want to invite people to a webinar? Do you simply want to collect email addresses for a campaign? Are you offering a free assessment, or a free trial? Do you need an incentive to enhance your “call to action?”

2) The list. Are the decision makers and the companies on your list the best prospects?

3) Talking points. Do your callers have the conversation points to highlight the key aspects of your program? Is there something compelling that needs to be added? Are the talking points too complicated or long?

4) Your calling team. How well do they represent you? How effective are they in talking to decision makers? Can they ask for the appointment?

5) Your ability to close the leads. This is the part that comes after a cold calling lead is identified. Can you cost effectively convert that lead into a sale? Do you have the people and processes in place? Are you getting qualified leads?

Case Studies

Here are short examples of savvy VSA clients who tested, assessed and refined their programs.

1) A software company implemented a program which successfully produced leads. However, the company was unprepared to convert the leads to sales. Now, this company plans a product-specific website, marketing materials and the right expertise to make sales calls. A second cold calling initiative is scheduled.

2) An online marketing company completed a program that produced poor results. The company has changed its offer to simplify steps prospective companies must take to enroll. A second campaign has been launched.

3) A commercial roofing company implemented a program and generated desired results. Later, the company realized the prospective clients were not a good fit. The company has implemented a second campaign targeting a different prospect list.

If you are planning a cold calling program, please call us to talk about the factors that can make or break your campaign. We’d like to know what marketing tools have worked for you in the past and show you how we can add to that success. We are happy to help.

Visit Terry’s site for information on outbound telemarketing and telemarketing programs.

The HVAC industry grew up on personal relationships between wholesalers and contractors. Now, converting these familiar relationships into real business partnerships is a goal of many wholesalers, Why? Because wholesalers want secure revenue stream that result from contractors’ business loyalty. Wholesalers know contractors are increasingly willing to work with those who make business easier and walk from those who don’t.

Today, times are hard for HVAC contractors. New companies are entering the market and taking business from existing players. The labor pool for qualified staff has tightened. As parts and equipment become increasingly sophisticated, purchasing and training have become more complicated. Not least of all, contractor margins are dropping. Contractors know that the wholesalers who help them will be able to give these contractors a competitive advantage.

So how can wholesalers create a business partnership? Ironically, it’s through SERVICE, from telephone etiquette to honoring a delivery commitment. Excellent service translates into trust. Trust leads to an ongoing business partnership and revenues. Service - it’s the new name of the game.

Here are 5 ways wholesaler organizations can use service to become better business partners with contractors. Some are common-sense ideas, while others point to the wave of the future.

# 5 Avoid hidden costs, such as freight and shipping- especially for small contractors. If respect and trust are keys to keeping long-term customers, make it a point to tell contractors upfront about costs they will incur but are not necessarily the cost of the product. One contractor made a special order without knowing there was a $75 dollar special order charge. The wholesaler failed to quote this charge when he estimated total expenses. Therefore he did not include it in the price to the customer. In the end, this contractor had to pay the $75 and absorb it from his own profit margin.

# 4 Provide training. Contractors say a wholesaler who provides training world be difficult not to do business with. Most say with the increasing sophistication of HVAC products, training on the electronic parts is an essential ingredient of staying in business.

Hutchinson Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling in fact said today’s workforce expect to be trained especially given the equipment sophistication and growth in electronic parts. Hutchinson invites manufacturers to its site for workforce training. But they’d send staff to wholesaler-sponsored training in an instant. Providing training demonstrates a wholesaler’s willingness to be a business partner and shows expertise in the industry.

# 3 Don’t commit to what you can’t deliver. If a wholesaler doesn’t carry a part, doesn’t have one in stock, or can’t get one overnight, the wholesaler should not commit to delivering the order. Industrial Valley Service says one of its most loyal wholesalers will occasionally suggest another wholesaler who stocks an item when it isn’t able to deliver. For Industrial Valley Service, that means getting the part on time, without the hassle of trying to find another distributor themselves. Instead of losing Industrial Valley Service as a customer, the loyal wholesaler has earned Industrial Valley Service’s respect. Being confident in the materials he does carry and in the service he offers, the loyal wholesaler is happy to help his contractors find other sources on the occasions he cannot help them.

# 2 Deliver accurately and on time. Without exception, this is the single biggest reason a contractor will stay with a wholesaler. Contractors count on receiving a delivery as ordered. They coordinate the people, machinery, temporaries, etc. to do a job at a designated time. Since labor is the biggest variable in a job, if the parts aren’t there, the contractor’s money is wasted.

And partial shipments aren’t enough. Contractors expect to receive the full shipment on time. Wholesalers who know there will not be a full shipment should call the contractor, even late the night before, to advise them of the problem. Most contractors would rather receive this late-night phone notice than find out the next morning.

# 1 Know your contractor. To implement a truly effective service approach, the wholesaler needs to know his contractors. This means keeping notes on the contractor’s size, business focus, geography, and payment history, among other things. It might also mean keeping notes about hobbies. It’s not relevant whether you keep these notes on the computer, on note cards, or in a look-leaf binder. Just having knowledge of the contractor is critical to building that trust and business partnership that will keep the contractor returning. A tip: Use the notes carefully without ever letting the contractor, or any other customer, know your method of remembering details about your contractors’ business.

What about price? So does all this talk about service mean that contractors don’t care about pricing anymore? On the contrary, they do. Underlying this discussion about service is the assumption that one wholesaler’s price is as competitive as another’s. Contractors will drive half a mile down the street to get the best price if they have to. Service is now the differentiator, all other things being equal, and is the key to building and maintaining business by business-savvy wholesaler.

Visit Terry’s site for information on outbound telemarketing and telemarketing programs.

The challenges facing todays global manufacturing ecosystem are not the same as those 50, 25, or even 5 years ago. Companies now have to learn to integrate systems across the globe and provide support for operations that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.

We used to schedule downtime during a holiday, but a holiday in the United States may not necessarily be a holiday in another country. New York used to be the city that never sleeps, but we are quickly becoming the networked world that never sleeps.

These international operations require manufacturing intelligence data at the fingertips of those who need to make management and logistic decisions. The manufacturing market challenges that companies face now include globalization, labor issues, competitiveness, and cost pressures.

Companies are finding that they need to improve their business practices with new strategies that support these challenges in order to survive and flourish. Scheduling is only one part of managing global operations.

Companies can improve consistency and predictability by improving their quality management practices both internally and in the supply chain. It is simply not enough to manage quality inside the production walls as it is much harder to respond to poor quality issues arising from components or sub assemblies if the supplier is the only one who can fix any issues that might arise.

Standard practices and metrics for manufacturing management are also critical to synchronizing global operations. To achieve this goal, it helps to standardize manufacturing and quality systems across the enterprise, and define standard integration interfaces between suppliers and internal operations.

Standard reports and a central data repository are also important so that everyone is working off one single version of truth. However, implementing standard processes, global systems, and a central repository is often easier said than done. Challenges include different languages, time zones, and security issues across the Internet.

Here are some lessons learned from big corporations deploying MES, or Manufacturing Execution Systems, and QA, Quality Assurance, systems around the world.
It is important to design interfaces between global systems so they can accommodate downtime. Systems should minimize impact to manufacturing operations during maintenance periods and must prevent data loss during these downtime periods. Offline methods should be able to recover connectivity and synchronize after any part of the enterprise system was down.

The corporation should define realistic performance expectations for systems prior to implementation. For example, are there any preexisting WAN capacity limitations that might hold performance back? Are there any elements that cannot be controlled or standardized, like suppliers hardware that could affect the use of an application? Have suppliers tried to minimize any security risks or problems with Internet connectivity?

Are there security measures in place that conform to industry practices and regulatory oversight, like those imposed by ITAR? These are all important questions to ask before beginning the process.

Companies should also keep in mind that the manufacturing systems should be continuously available to the shop floor when deciding whether to implement a system in a central or a distributed manner. They should figure the cost of one hour of production downtime to help make decisions on high availability platforms, and should have well documented service restoration procedures in place in the event of any problems or glitches.

The coverage plans should include a call list of key people that will be available round the clock so that the company does not have to solely rely on first shift support to fix problems. Potential language challenges should be taken into consideration when making the call list as well. Scheduled maintenance windows should be clearly communicated across the enterprise.

Companies should carefully consider data warehousing and business intelligence solutions that will be part of the enterprise system. Considerations should not only include user friendliness, but also performance and security requirements. Regions like China and Eastern Europe might require isolated networks.

If companies consider these issues upfront and design their systems to accommodate these requirements, they will be off to a good start. There are companies out there that have already embarked on these efforts and some are willing to share the lessons they have learned.

There are also system integrator companies that are specializing on global solution deployments. Companies should be sure to reach out and leverage the experience of those paving the way in this new global manufacturing ecosystem.

iBASEt is a leading provider of high tech software solutions and services. More information about this topic and Manufacturing Execution Systems is available in the webcast entitled Tying Engineering, Quality and Operations into One Global Quality Management System.

The oil crisis and world overdependence on fossil fuels have paved the way for new developments in alternative energy sources. One of these alternative sources is biomass, which certainly has the potential of being considered a good substitute for fossil fuel. Seeds of fortune are often planted in the throes of a crisis. Biomass may just be that seed of fortune you are looking for.

Biomass is a natural and renewable energy source that is derived from recently dead biological matter and is used as a biofuel. It usually comes from plants, but it also comes from animal matter and other agricultural biodegradable waste. Examples of plants that can be used as biomass are corn, sugar cane, wheat, and switchgrass. Waste matter from plants like coconut husks, rice hulls, and bagasse (waste from sugar cane) are also examples of biomass. However, biomass excludes organic material which has been transformed by geological processes into substances such as coal or petroleum. In general, biomass can be used in either raw form or some sort of modified, blended form.

Biomass works like this. It is burned to produce heat that makes hot water, which then produces steam that can power turbines. Since biomass is also carbon-based like traditional fossil fuel, it has a comparable burning rate that makes it suitable as an energy source for small-scale power generation. But unlike fossil fuels, biomass absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during its growing lifetime. After its life, the carbon in biomass recycles to the atmosphere as a mixture of CO2 and methane (CH4), depending on the ultimate fate of the biomass material. CH4 converts to CO2 in the atmosphere, completing the cycle. In contrast to biomass carbon, the carbon in fossil fuels is locked away in geological storage forever, unless extracted.

Biomass has become a popular alternative source of energy in farming areas and other areas where there is a huge amount of agricultural waste. Farmers have used biomass to power their equipment and for post-harvest processing of agricultural crops.

As an energy source, biomass has many applications depending on the type of material used, the location, and the processing that it has to undergo to make it usable. The simplest biomass application is agricultural fertilizers. Biomass materials can also be used for fiber or building material. Further chemical processing, such as hydrogenation, can produce a biomass that makes it a suitable fuel source. Biomass is also sometimes used for space heating applications.

Biomass is also scalable. Already there are biomass power plants operating with 11,000 megawatts (MW) installed capacity, representing the second largest amount of renewable energy in the United States, next to geothermal energy. These power plants burn wood and agricultural wood wastes. Aside from burning the biomass to produce heat, gases like methane can also be extracted, which can then be used as fuel for generators, turbines, and fuel cells.

Some environmentalists argue that biomass is part of the carbon cycle and as such emits greenhouse gases that contribute to global warning. That said, biomass emits 50% less than emissions from burning fossil fuel. Furthermore, the disadvantage of having carbon dioxide emission can be offset by the fact that biomass is often sourced from recycled waste materials, therefore significantly reducing solid waste. This helps to classify it as an efficient and cost-effective energy source.

In addition to this environmental concern, biomass raises another critical issue in the food vs. fuel debate. Some argue that using biomass for energy instead of using it as an edible food is unconscionable. This argument has been magnified by the more recent oil and food price crises, where critics point out that biomass could have helped create or at least magnify the rising cost of food staples. However, some studies suggest the amount of crops that go to biofuel production may not be significant enough to tip the food demand.

While the conversion to biomass fuels is probably inevitable, some are concerned about how the conversion will take place: The timing and cost of the conversion is still not clear. Also total direct and indirect costs and what groups benefit and which groups suffer are major concerns. With congressional leadership favoring an acceleration of greener energy in a way that benefits their constituents and lobbyists, the conversion to biomass will create winners and losers.

What the biomass discussion is pointing to is the urgency for industries to begin planning NOW for the inevitability of a greener world. Will you be prepared?

Bottom line? Apply this information to improve your profitability, reengineer business models, and strengthen or gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. And apply the free Fiscal Test at http://fiscaldoctor.com/fiscaltest.html.

From Gary W Patterson, www.FiscalDoctor.com Copyright 2008

Encouraging a positive mental attitude in the workplace and fostering productive time management can be a difficult task for anyone in a managerial position. One of the ways that you could consider improving the working environment is by building employee moral through team building exercises. Announcing a compulsory corporate event will strike fear into some employees as memories come flooding back of office activities that were designed to break the ice offered nothing more than public humiliation. To appease those that doubt such activities can actually be a positive exercise, create a list of options available. It would also be helpful to give reassurance that in the hands of professional corporate entertainment managers, only fun is on the agenda.

It is important not to skimp on the cost of such a beneficial day, avoid the low budget events as the benefits of a successful team day out are priceless. Morales will be boosted, communication improved, barriers broken down and creative thinking improved. Happy workers are more productive, and a happy working environment produces a better quality of work. The positive mind frame set by the experience will transfer to the office and a building of a social network in the office environment will lead to an openness and honesty that is invaluable in the office hierarchy.

Events on offer range from corporate days out at sports events such as cricket, motor racing and rugby, to more specialised team bonding events. Music, fashion shows, treasure hunts, paintballing, tank driving, archery, game shows and quizzes are all available with varying degrees of interaction depending on the size of the group and account for all mental and physical abilities. Even if you want an event hosted that will have international guests, activities are kept simple and generic enough for all nationalities to understand and take part.

Quizzes and Game shows are an ideal choice for an exciting and engaging indoor event. These are often based on popular TV game shows such as Family Fortunes, Blankety Blank and Play Your Cards Right. There is even a competitive and challenging corporate competition based on the Apprentice which can be tailored to your company’s specification as can the other games available.

Creative bonding events involving catwalk fashion, filmmaking, art, music and journalism can make for an incredibly exciting and mind-stretching day out. Breaking down the usual barriers is an easy task when it comes to creative challenges. From full day events that lead to a musical performance, to a 60 minute watercolour class, once again the level of ability and how much you want to stretch your employees’ imagination determines the type of team development you can opt for.

In the summer months, why not make the most of favourable weather and dive into an outdoor pursuit. Competitive events like shooting and archery are great for highly motivated and driven workers. Rising to the challenge of competing against colleagues, the outdoor environment is a healthy way to exorcise excess competitive energy that might otherwise surface in an enclosed office environment in a negative way. For something a little less serious, It’s a Knockout style games is a laugh a minute solution to burn excess energy for the whole company. Foamy fun and sumo suits will create a day to remember, and seeing each other in a comedic light can reverse negative office attitudes forever. One thing is guaranteed, the more effort that is put into building and bonding with your workforce, the more effort that workforce will make for your company.

Shaun Parker is a leading on team building. Find out more about team building at Accolade Corporate Events, experts in team bonding events.

Throwing a party can be tough at the best of times, let alone trying to accommodate the needs, desires and wants of colleagues and business associates. The best thing to do is pass the buck to a dedicated hospitality team to put together a package that meets all your requirements. Popular hospitality events include dinners with guest speakers, casino nights, theatre, fashion and flower shows, performing arts, concerts and a whole host of sporting events.

Although the monetary cost of a corporate event may seem enormous, the benefit of having the weight taken off your shoulders by hospitality professionals is priceless. Not only do you get to focus on the play instead of the work, you can be reassured that all the guests and colleagues will be adequately catered for and all their needs met. Events such as these can be fantastic team building exercises, as well as a relaxed way to meet new clients and promote business. So, how do you choose what type of corporate hospitality event will suit your company?

As the range of events available to attend is enormous, it is wise to see what packages are associated with certain events. If a champagne lunch is a priority, it’s no good booking a tank driving day. Maybe location is an importance, or the interests of your team or clientele you wish to entertain. Prestigious venues always have a big impact, and with VIP treatment for all, it will definitely leave a positive impression whichever hospitality package is chosen.

So, what can be expected from a typical package? The usual fare is champagne and food with souvenir memorabilia and event documentation, and there should always be a member of event management to hand to make sure the day runs smoothly. At the end of the day, your comfort and pleasure is their priority, so they are there to sort everything out on your behalf, so you can get on with quaffing the champers and savouring the soiree.

Sporting events are the most numerous on offer covering days at the races, whether that be horses or cars; rowing or the dogs. Major events are always open to hospitality functions, such as Formula 1 at Silverstone or rugby at Twickenham. If cricket is your bag, then a day spent at The Brit Oval might be of interest. You can expect to get a champagne reception, private seating, lunch with a complementary bar, event documentation and a celebrity guest speaker at dinner, and not to forget unrivalled views of match action. There is a choice between using the recently built stand with a roof terrace or the traditional pavilion to witness some of the most prestigious cricket matches.

If a little bit more action is what you are after, then a music event will gain you and your guests VIP entry to exclusive entertainment areas both pre and after show. As usual, expect champagne and a complementary bar as well as a three course meal and surprise souvenirs to take home. Or maybe a trip to see Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall, for some unique circus entertainment; where a private box will be provided along with personal waiting services, food and champagne.

If the budget allows, you could always opt for a bespoke package and throw a party that is like no other. This is ideal for entertaining and impressing major clients with a clout, a unique night that is guaranteed to impress. And leaving the arrangements of the finer details to the professionals will guarantee that the only headache you’ll have will be from the champagne the morning after.

Shaun Parker is an expert in corporate entertainment and recommends The Oval Corporate Hospitality. To find out more about corporate entertainment visit the Keith Prowse website.