1. Do you know who your competitors are? Do you know where they are and how big they are? Would you be aware if any new competitors entered your market?

2. Do you regularly monitor your competitors’ advertising and promotions by looking for their advertisements, visiting their premises and looking at their websites?

3. Do you talk to your suppliers about your competitors and gather information about what they’re buying and what quantities they purchase?

4. Do you encourage your staff to keep an eye on marketing activity by your competitors and pass any good ideas on to you?

5. Do you keep up to date with technological developments in your field and will you know if your competitors adopt new technology into their business?

6. Do you know the statistics of your marketplace - what your share of market is and what market share is held by each of your major competitors?

7. Have you conducted a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis on your business? Are you prepared to deal with any competitive threats that might be identified?

8. Do you know what opportunities exist for you to grow your business – either by taking business away from your competitors or by expanding into new market areas?

9. Do you know what is happening in the legislative environment that might affect your organization - that any pending legislation doesn’t pose a threat to you or mean that you will have to change the way you conduct your business?

10. Do you regularly research your products against those of your competitors? Are you able to respond quickly if you find your product offers fewer features and benefits or needs improvement?

There may be a lot of work involved in finding the answers to all these questions and using it to improve your product but, thankfully, yours aren’t the only eyes and ears available to monitor your marketplace. If you work together with your team you’ll be in a much better position to answer the questions and to make gains against your competitors.

A business that knows and understands its rivals has a much better chance of being able to withstand competitive onslaughts and to formulate strategies that will take business away from others in its industry.

The purchasing behavior of human beings is fairly predictable. If they purchase an item from a source and it proves acceptable to them and doesn’t let them down in any way, they’ll probably return to the same source for their next purchase of one of these items.

This is good news for you when you think about the customers you already have. But if you expect to take business away from your competitors it means you have to give prospects a really good reason to change.

And one good way of doing that is to ‘prove’ you are different/better with some statistics or actual numbers.

Use Statistics in Testimonials

One of the best ways to attract the attention of prospects is to leverage your existing customers and their satisfaction with your business.

You can impress your prospects by compiling a case study of the success your customers have enjoyed and use the information as a testimonial to your products or services. ‘ABC Company’s sales rose 18% after they switched their advertising to Sportsman’s World’ is an impressive indication of the effectiveness of advertising in Sportsman’s World.

For retailers the testimonial with statistics works best through highlighting cost savings to be made by customers –‘I save $28 on my weekly grocery bills at Buy-Rite’, and ‘Since I started using reloaded cartridges my photocopying costs have dropped by $54 a month’ are examples of how your existing customers can be the basis of an attractive proposition to lure new customers.

The important thing here is that it’s not you doing the promoting – it’s one of your customers providing objective information and actual proof of the benefits of dealing with your company.

Make an Offer Too Good to Refuse

If you’re confident that you can outperform the competition and want to switch one of their customers over to your business offer the prospect a direct comparison deal.

Agree to supply your prospect on the same basis that your competitor does - the same quantities and the same prices - for an agreed period of time on the understanding that if you prove that you can give them a better deal than the competition, then they’ll give you a testimonial you can use in your promotions.

This gives your prospect the opportunity to see the differences between you and your competitor and gets the argument away from price comparisons.  If you keep up your end of the bargain you’re likely to gain both a testimonial for your company and a new customer.

Gather Your Own Statistics

Statistics are impressive, whether it’s dollars saved, less time expended, additional miles traveled or any other figure that can be quickly understood by prospects. Notice also that statistics are hardly ever even numbers. If they’re genuine they’ll probably be more like ‘$29.90’ than ‘$30’. Rounding-off only makes it look like it’s made up for the advertisement.

Statistics can be obtained in any number of ways. Talk to your customers or appoint a market research firm to conduct a customer survey; having a third party as the source of statistics will add credibility.

Customer surveys can give you an excellent source of meaningful statistics that can be used to promote your business – ‘98% of our customers tell us they’d never go anywhere else for their furniture’ and ‘Seven out of ten Mason’s customers have told their friends about us’ show how to use this kind of information.

One of the main reasons salespeople are often seen to be underperforming is that their companies don’t have an internal system or process for creating continuous improvement. Let’s look at how an organization can really work at developing its salespeople.

New Hires are Trained in Salesmanship Skills

All new hires in sales are put through a training program that teaches them not just about the company and its products but also about the ‘right way’ to work in selling.  Here are some of the topics that this program would cover:

•           How to make a sales call
•           How to create and maintain a customer relationship
•           How to prospect for new business
•           How to get an appointment with a prospect
•           How to get information about a prospect’s business
•           How to keep records of their sales activities
•           How to follow-up with customers

This is a basic course in salesmanship and you may expect that many new hires in the selling department would already know all about these things. But there is a ‘company (our) way’ of doing them and that should be taught at the onset.

Salespeople are Told Their Key Performance Indicators and Monitored on Them

From day one until they retire or leave for other reasons, every salesperson needs to be kept informed of their rate of progress, and so does management. This begins by setting out the key performance indicators the salesperson will be assessed against and the benchmarks they will be expected to perform to at the time they begin with the company. Which key performance indicators are used will vary from one firm to another, but can include such things as revenue per customer, number of prospects contacted in a period, conversion rate of prospects to customers, and so forth.

The progress of every salesperson should be constantly monitored so that both they and management have a good awareness of how they’re performing. Any problem areas can be quickly detected and corrective measures applied if monitoring is carried out effectively. Another important thing is to keep looking out for management talent among your sales team. Leaders are best found on the battlefield and not sourced from those who stay on the sidelines.

Training and Education are Provided on an Ongoing Basis

Most salespeople are driven to achievement, and that means they appreciate anything that will make them better at their work. Regular skill improvement programs that will hone their selling talents may take away some of their face-t0-face time with customers, but it can also make them much better at turning contacts into customers in the longer run.

There are several good training programs available that can be used, but a word of warning - avoid the ‘motivational’ materials out there and only use the content that is going to have real and lasting value to your sales team. Review everything yourself to be sure it’s got that kind of worth; trying to get your salespeople interested in something that won’t actually improve their skills and knowledge is a waste of time.

Salespeople are Encouraged to Network

Schedule regular get-togethers of the sales team and encourage them to share positive experiences with their colleagues. They’re much more likely to listen to a fellow salesperson first-hand than they are to read a newsletter recapturing a stranger’s sales exploits. Networking can be combined with training and developmental sessions, and if properly structured will raise morale and enable the ‘older and wiser’ salespeople to transmit their knowledge to the salespeople on their way up.

Outstanding Performance is Rewarded

Salespeople who achieve significant accomplishments must be rewarded and their success given some recognition in-house. It may take some kind of incentive to stimulate them to reach for their best, but that’s an investment that has to be made. Compensation systems and strategies for recognition of success must be part of the overall structure of the organization.

If your workplace has a number of noise sources or any loud volume noise (including loud music in entertainment venues) it is essential that you take appropriate steps to protect the hearing of your employees; failure to do this could result in legal action being taken against you by an employee seeking compensation for hearing damage.

Noise Doesn’t Effect Just Hearing

Exposure to noise acts as a stressor, activating physiological factors that, over time, can produce a range of adverse health effects. Although all of the effects and mechanisms are not yet clearly understood, it has been demonstrated that noise can produce both acute and chronic health effects such as:

•           Headache

•           Elevated blood pressure

•           Fatigue

•           Irritability

•           Digestive disorders

•           Increased susceptibility to colds and other minor infections

One of the main problems is that noise can be an insidious cause of harm. Excessive noise levels over a long period of time will damage hearing so gradually and painlessly that a person may not notice the minor deterioration from one day to the next. 

The degree of loss depends on the loudness of the noise and the level of exposure. Some people exposed to excessive noise develop tinnitus, which is described as a constant ringing sound. For most cases of noise-induced hearing loss, there is no cure. Hearing aids only amplify sounds, and can't replace normal hearing capability.

How Do You Identify Potential Noise Hazards in a Workplace?

Begin by conducting a walk-through survey to determine whether or not noise is a potential problem in your workplace. Some indicators of a potentially hazardous noise level are:

•  The noise is louder than busy city traffic

•  People have to raise their voice to talk to someone who is just 3 feet away

• At the end of their work period a person has increased the volume of their radio or TV to a level that would be uncomfortably loud for others

• After working for a prolonged period of time, employees have difficulty hearing you when there are other sounds or voices, not necessarily loud, impinging on your conversation

As well, have an occupational hygienist conduct an assessment of noise level readings around the premises to see if they fall within legally acceptable levels.

Reducing the Noise Risk

There are a several things you can do to reduce employees’ exposure to noise hazards. These include:

1. Redesign equipment and work processes so they are not as noisy - for example, by lining metal chutes and bins with scrap rubber conveyor belting.

2. Stop the noise from reaching employees by moving noisy machines away from them, by building soundproof enclosures around noise-producing equipment, or by putting up a barrier between machines and operators.

3. Reduce the time people are exposed to noise by moving them between noisy and quiet jobs so nobody is exposed to noise for too long.

4. Provide suitable safety equipment, earmuffs or earplugs, and mandate their use by employees in noisy areas.