Even the number one business in its field has problems in need of solutions.  The best of breed businesses and industry leaders struggle to find solutions so that they can stay on top.

As a sales professional, implicitly what your customer pays you to deliver solutions.  Many times those solutions are underpinned by your own product or service, and sometimes it is the packaging and perception that gives them value.

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If you are the sales professional for a firm, and you are ignorant about hat they need, you cannot produce solutions.  You have to ask.  You must gather from them enough information to “make a difference.”  Know how to make your product and services convenient for them.  It is called “ease of doing business.”  If you give the customers an easy way to interface with you, you will make a difference.

Diagnose The Issues

The only way to know what would provide ease of business is to listen and probe deeply and frequently.  Communication is at the root of this diagnosis, and action is the result.

• Investigate – Seize every opportunity to ask your customer what are their greatest opportunities and threats from a business standpoint.  As companies determine these in their SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis you can focus on what your organization can do.
• Strengthen Your Knowledge – Know your company’s industry, and have a strong knowledge of the customer’s industry.  Know how you can use your current product offerings packaged differently to satisfy needs.
• Record – Keep a good record of customer’s problems, and take time to group problems of like-customers together.  If you do this well you can pick where to spend your time trying to develop superior solutions.
• Research – Spend time researching the best way to solve problems, once you have determined what can efficiently be solved.  Use your competitor’s ideas, your imagination, and yourexpertise as you research how to solve.

Stand and Deliver

Once you have determined what can be solved efficiently and have researched the solutions that can be used, you have an excellent opportunity to be a “star” if you deliver it correctly.

I am going to give a practical example of how this works:

An office products sales professional recognizes that his list of clients includes a large number of non-profits.  Much of his customer list had similar needs, and similar restrictions from the standpoint of finances.  Non-profits are similar, although not the same.  Knowing this market segment, he began to structure a program that had some unique offerings.

Realizing that many of these non-profits buy many of the same products, he began the process of packaging them.  He came up with unique “offerings” that were mainly packaging that satisfied a need regarding the products purchased, and the way they were consumed.

He then lobbied for unique credit terms (trade terms) that he could offer, knowing that they would need to stretch out payments for a longer period based on them being funded by governmental agencies and donations.  Once he got them, he made that a part of his “Non-Prof-Pak”.

He then worked to do that which you can only do if you know the buying habits of your customers.  He worked to do a separate mailing to his customers (“Non-Prof-Pak) with the most frequently purchased products in it.  This was based on his research of what products were being purchased by all of them.  His mailing amounted to a specialized catalog of items that were most used by non-profits including some items that his organization did not carry; yet he knew they needed.  He arranged for those items to come from a “friendly” competitor that allowed those items in the mailing.  It was “win-win”.

The result was that his customers did not have to search for their most common items.  Someone who “specialized” in non-profits sent them to them!  We know that it was the way it was packaged, and received.  They did not have to hunt through a long catalog; someone had marketed directly to them.

This sales professional picked up business from this sector, and attained a certain stature in the business community.  This individual has retired since then, and there are not catalogs for the most part with on-line marketing, yet the example is solid.  Packaging is important, marketing is important, and specialization is important.

Product and Promotion

That is a question only you can answer.  There is a possibility that you can identify a group of customers who have a similar need and operating pattern.  Examples are storefront merchants, Black churches and religious organizations, truckers, printers, publishers, and a host of other semi-homogeneous groups.  You want groups with more in common, than differences.

Structure them with an eye toward what solutions they need, then deliver it.  Your research is important, so do it correctly.  You can figure out what makes them the same, and market to them with the application of some of the steps above.

Remember the 5Ps of Marketing:

• People
• Place
• Product
• Promotion
• Price

In this effort, you are concentrating on the product, or perceived product and promotion.  Your packaging of the product promotion makes all of the difference in the world in this case.

You can only do what your organization lets you do; yet there is some latitude here.  Remember some of the discussions in Black Sales Journal 12/20 – Your Customer Needs an Expert- Let it be You.  We are not talking about you being a sophisticated expert here, yet your ability to package and promote will be the ultimate asset.

By doing this you can provide an ease of doing business that others might have missed.  You can orchestrate the designing of product packages that hit the mark.  We all have seen it, known what it is, and still purchased because it had “perceived” value.

I think you can provide more solutions than you think.  You might be surprised.

Your comments are appreciated.

I wanted to share the results of a recent survey by Jobvite, a leading developer of software for job recruitment in social media.  Jobvite’s research indicates a survey of 1,600 recruiters indicated a fact which we all have been concerned about.  The question posed to recruiters was:

Have you ever reconsidered a candidate based on their social profile?

Yes 42%     No 58%

Yes – 42% of recruiters have indicated that they have reconsidered candidates based on their social profile!

Social media can be fun, informative, and enjoyable….depending on who is looking at it.  It can be all of those because it is not the medium, but more how you use it.    Social media involvement is voluntary, and thus the problems that happen as a result of using it are self-imposed ills.

I know some professionals who are wise enough to establish a social media “alias” that will allow them to enjoy social media use and give personal freedom while preserving their privacy.

However you elect to enjoy social media, you will want to remember that you’re “broadcasting” your life, and you need to be prepared for individuals to interpret or misinterpret everything you say or do.

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There has been much press regarding this topic.  The way you handle your social media could possibly interfere with your ability to get, and sometimes keep a job in the digital age. With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, and many other social media outlets, even the most devoted sales professional could stand the risk of distraction.

Additionally, if you allow your personal business to be made public, it will come back to haunt you.  Without the careful filtering of your participation in social media sites, you could be making your private life public.

The power of social media is amazing but utter the wrong thing and the ability of social media to go viral could change your life, or at least your employment status.

Using Social Media On the Job

This is an interesting proposition. I was in a group classroom setting in a social media class when the professor asked if any of us knew our employers policy on social media and electronic media. Sadly, 3 out of 20 people raised their hands.  You should have a copy of it if you are engaging in any social media at the workplace , and if you do any social media mentioning your employers while on your own time.  Normally it can be found on your company’s intranet site, or requested from human resources.  In most cases it describes the things that are important, and you will quickly be able to scan it and tell if it is a templated policy, or if it has been tailored for your employer’s needs.

A couple things you do know:

• Avoid criticizing your employer in any social media. It is that simple.  On your e-mails, if on the company email system, I would suggest avoiding any negative references to your boss, your company, or your company’s information.

• Organizations have an ability to track your usage of personal media sites/social media sites in terms of keystrokes and time spent. Make an assumption that they do it! Is it worth losing your job to respond during the workday?

• A preoccupation with social media on the job is widespread. An organization called Nucleus Research of Boston; Massachusetts indicates that 77% of American workers admit to using Facebook while on the job. Think about being the employer who is trying to explain difficult financial performance when it determined that of that 77%, 87% state that had nothing to do with their job duties.

When employees were dealing with predominately e-mail 10 years ago, it was not a big deal.  After the explosion of social media it becomes evident that participation in social media can be very time-consuming.

Many  sophisticated employers have blocked the sites for social media on the job.  In most cases, you will be making entries with your own equipment including your cell phone or tablet.  Be smart there as well.

Using Social Media at Home

Your use of social media in your private life shouldn’t be a big issue. The problems occur when the theater of social media shows you in compromising situations, and is seen by a manager or coworker.

A few examples are:

• A intimate relationship between a manager and one of his direct reports, an act which is proscribed in almost every organization, was discovered when it was posted on one of their Facebook sites.
• A rant about a manager and the employer was posted on Twitter and seen by the manager.  The words, though limited to 140 were “damning” and ended with a ‘reassignment’ of the employee to less favorable duties.
• Entries and tweets that are full of tough language and sexual connotations will haunt you as has happened to many who thought their comments were shielded.

As sated to start this piece, prospective employers and recruiters resort to perusing a Facebook site to determine the ‘personality’ of an applicant.  It might not feel right, yet it happens.  What they are really getting is a listing of the personal activities of the candidate.  When they see you with the bottle of vodka in one hand and something we hope is a cigarette in the other, they may make a decision that is…well let’s just say not in your favor.

One Last Point

Black professionals increasingly realize the need for discretion and forethought in this important area. Why?…. Because there is a general ignorance and curiosity regarding how you live your life because of the difference in cultures.  Show them only what you want them to know, or nothing at all.  Wisely protect yourself, your family, and your career.

You are constantly being evaluated as a sales professional; that is something that you cannot change.  No one needs to be afoul of the rules that govern the workplace or business as a whole.  Avoid transmitting anything regarding your company on social media no matter how safe and secure you think it is.  Additionally, avoid using your personal computer or hardware to “broadcast” anything on social media pertaining to your company, an employee of your company, or your work situation.

Be smart and aware and always be the professional.

Your comments are welcome.