Are you selling?

The Florida International Medical Expo, or FIME, was celebrated from august 2nd to Thursday the 4th at the Miami Convention Center, and I have to say, it was an eye opening experience. Having been in medical sales for 4 years now and having attended medical congresses and courses, the FIME was so different to the other events I had gone to. There is a main reason for this and that is that here the focus was not medical conferences or the learning, or the CME points, nope, it was just the creation of new commercial relationships between distributors and providers, between doctors and new equipment, and hospital administrative staff and new suppliers. It was a big orgy for the medical devices industry in which deals were made, others rejected and, in the end, a huge load of money moved around this week in which Miami Beach burst into the tourism that typically drives its local economy.

Safe to say that this event offers a display of the best names in medical equipment, and sales reps and managers, or, does it? Having been assigned a lousy place because of remodeling, we were placed somewhere that only by chance you had people going by us, poor location, poor visibility, and poor neighbors. I have to say I was a little disappointed, expecting to see people so skilled at selling that deals would be struck in a frequent manner, but no, apparently as a business, after you've made your ~$5,000 dollar investment in setting up a booth, spent around ~$1,500 in flights, another $1,000 in hotel and who knows how much in on the road expenses, you do not even sit down to analyze who the hell is representing your company, or presenting your product offerings.

One of the advantages of having this awful location was that to the right I had a Korean company, and to the right a Chinese one, which helped me to set theory and law on the point I am trying to make. Let's break it down:

The South Korean company thought ahead, not only they brought in a woman (which is always a plus, what?, sue me) but this lady could speak Korean, English and a heck of a good Spanish. Here I have to say that this expo is happening in Miami, international focus, so you need to get people who know at least English and Spanish, for the latinos that will show up will be quite a few, and so it happened. At the same time they brought in this dude from Latin American sales from one of their distributors, who understand this market, and he was there aiding in establishing new relationships. All in all, the neighbors from the right not only knew their product, had multi language skills and cross cultural understanding and resources, but also knew the market they were targeting, their competition and their advantages against them. They were kicking ass with each customer they received.

Now with the Chinese. These fellas brought in one of the company owners who had the communication skills of a 1756 telephone (analyze that!), one of the managers and a "sales" employee. The last 2, women, spoke English and Chinese and were the ones doing all the contact and the selling. Needless to say we had to aid them when Spanish-speaking-only customers walked by, which, to me, would automatically knock out points for interest, for communication is crucial in business relationships. What struck me the most was the lack of coordination between them as a "team", from not even sharing price strategies and giving out crazy numbers when asked for prices, as with the lousy misinformed manager, who didn't even clearly understand the financials behind their operation, which prompted the not being able to understand how to negotiate with potential customers, and me, listening to the so common: "too expensive". It was so funny, for at one moment a customer from Brazil walks by and asks for price, and the manager said: "it is very expensive, $200 dollars". I do not have to say that these "sellers" had no understanding of the market, competitor prices or strategies, and even asked me at some point to call the competitors offices in China, to ask for price for a competing product. This is not wrong, but the timing? well, it was the last day of the expo.

So I don't know, call me picky, but walking around the fair I would have liked to feel approached to, talked to, overwhelmed with offers, call my attention, offer me stuff; goddammit, sell me something!

I can't complain, the lousier the competition, the easier I get it to promote what I've got to offer. I think it is basic things like dominating your product specs, understanding the market, elaborating a simple sales pitch with your key selling points and dismantling the competitors' strategies that will provide a nice ground to be effective at selling, all of this combined with the appropriate communication skills will allow you to maximize your investment in this kind of event a next time.

I am just looking forward to the next expo, to see what kind of surprises I will get.

Key Selling Points: ¿conoces tu producto?

Key Selling Points: ¿conoces tu producto?

Por: José Miguel Rodríguez

Quiero empezar haciéndote una pregunta sencilla: ¿conoces los productos que vendes?, y puede que me respondas algo más sencillo aún: sí. Pero, ¿de verdad conoces lo que estas vendiendo?

Creemos que sabemos, conocemos nuestro producto de arriba abajo, su color, su tamaño, su año de fabricación, su diseñador, el país de donde proviene y las certificaciones que lo avalan, sin embargo, esto no significa que sepamos los puntos claves de venta que posee nuestro producto, sus key selling points.

Todos los carros tienen 4 ruedas, un guía, transmisión, puertas, asientos, entonces, ¿por qué unos elijen entre un modelo y otro? McDonalds vende hamburguesas, sin embargo vende más que Burger King, ¿por qué?

Los puntos clave de venta (PCV) nos ayudarán a destacar nuestro producto de la competencia, así de sencillo, es por esto que siquiera existe una competencia entre compañías. Cada empresa puede tener PCV definidos que sean propios del producto, propios del servicio con el cual se ofrece ese producto, o propios de una combinación de productos. Acompaño con algunos ejemplos:

• ·    Propio del producto - Smile shutter: Sony revolucionó el mercado de las fotos automáticas con el Smile Shutter, esta tecnología te permite tomar fotos, sin activar ningún botón, solo con sonreir. Imagina esos momentos de fotos grupales en las  cuales tenías que poner un tiempo automático, o cuando querías tomar un “selfie” y se te hacía incómodo hacer la foto, pues con el Smile Shutter solo tenías que sonreír y listo, la foto quedaba plasmada. Sony lanzó esta tecnología en 2 cámaras y luego en sus teléfonos celulares. Esto es un ejemplo perfecto de un producto con un PCV claro, una tecnología exclusiva que lo diferencian del resto. Todos querían un Sony solo por esto.
• ·    Propio del servicio – Amazon es el ejemplo perfecto. Todo el mundo vende por internet: Ebay, Alibaba, Mercadolibre, sin embargo, Amazon es la más usada a nivel mundial, ¿por qué?, por su perfil de servicio al cliente. Según la escala Temkin de servicio al cliente, Amazon.com tiene un 79% de aceptación en comparación con la industria de tiendas online, que promedia solo 20%. Entonces, puedes tener un producto promedio, o igual a tu competencia, pero si tu oferta de servicio al cliente es buena puedes opacar a la competencia bien fácil.
• ·     Propio de la combinación de productos – Tricom: honestamente no recuerdo quien fue el primero, pero si sé que Tricom fue líder en la industria en combinar los servicios de cable, teléfono e internet en un solo paquete, forzando así a otras compañías como Codetel (ahora Claro) a hacer lo mismo, ya que se vieron amenazados en perder una gran cantidad de la clientela, pues ya no tenían que tener 2 o 3 proveedores, 2 o 3 facturas y 2 o 3 pagos al mes, ahora, todo se resolvía con una sola visita a una estafeta de pagos, así como los problemas o inconvenientes con un solo representante de servicios.

Estas son 3 maneras o ejemplos simples de cómo compañías pueden encontrar, desarrollar o crear PCV. Atendiendo a esto, te pregunto de nuevo, ¿conoces los productos que vendes? No respondas, primero déjate saber si eres capaz de decir 3 PCV de cualquier producto de tu cartera, o de tu servicio o de tus “bundles” o paquetes (si tu compañía tiene alguno).

Debemos entender que vender en el medio de hoy no es igual a vender en el medio de ayer. Todos tus clientes tienen acceso a internet y también la competencia, vender hoy es más difícil que ayer porque opciones hay muchas, y tienes que ser capaz de identificar como tu producto hace una diferencia en tu futuro cliente. Aquí reside la importancia de los PCV, cada uno debe ir orientado a presentar una solución para un potencial problema:

• ·      Smile Shutter: no tienes que esperar riéndote como un tonto a que se tome la foto.
• ·      Servicio de Amazon: tu compra esta garantizada a ser placentera, si no, te haremos feliz como sea.
• ·      Paquete de Tricom: no tienes que tener 3 facturas, o 3 llamadas a servicio al cliente, y por tener todo con nosotros, te damos tu descuento.

Ahora si, respóndeme la pregunta, ¿conoces los productos que vendes?, te incentivo a que te sientes 1 hora con un cuaderno y hagas notas, ¿cuáles son los PCV de cada producto que vendes, de tu servicio?, ¿cómo beneficia cada uno de estos a tu cliente? Creeme, después de que analices esto, vender será mucho más facil