Sales Laundry

Archive for the ‘Sales Process’ Category

I was recently asked in short interview if I could close a sale.  After 20+ years of direct sales or sales management experience and building companies through sales, I responded with a confident “yes.”

“What proof do you have to show for it?” was the gist of the follow up question, to which I responded with my historic close ratios and my historic sales rankings.

After completing the conversation and looking back upon it, I think that was a miserable way to answer that question.  Thinking about it a little more, I came up with the right answer for me.

Can I close a sale?

My proof?

• I have friends.  Friends I met through a cold call and a willingness to listen, understand and offer a solution that made some aspect of their lives and businesses better that I can still call today even though our paths have long since moved in different directions.
• A large charitable organization serving families that would otherwise fall through the cracks has been able to save money and reallocate thousands of dollars from operating costs directly to their aid programs, increasing their reach and giving them the ability to help more people in their community.
• A government entity mandated to change their technology infrastructure without any budget dollars to so, successfully met that mandate without impacting their users scattered across the nation or disrupting the systems responsible for generating pay checks for some of our soldiers.
• A vice president client had such confidence in his ability to manage his organization from anywhere that he was able to go on humanitarian missions around the world building houses and improving lives where running water and electricity are considered luxuries.
• Several small businesses have been able to open and serve their community and begin to rebuild a warzone neighborhood with loans made to them by a new bank that manages risk and responds to customer needs through infrastructure and security programs I helped design and put in place.

What the “proof” question made me think about, and what I have never really stopped to consider before, is what happens downstream once our work is complete and the sales deal gets done.

Can you close a sale?  What proof do you have?  How would you answer that question?

Take a look downstream from your own sales efforts and look for your own proof.  If you feel like sharing with the rest of us, I would be glad to hear your story.

Image courtesy of Isrealli.org

For the last few months I have been working via mobile office so I thought I would take the time to tell you about the tools I am using and give you field sales types a real life review of the stuff I am using and hopefully get a great idea or two from you.

My mobile office consists of:

• Blackberry Curve
• Toshiba Satellite L300 series laptop
• AT&T USBConnect Mercury Aircard
• Skype
• NeatReceipts software/scanner
• HP H470 mobile printer
• 300W power inverter
• USB drive
• Sales binder
• Rolling bag
• Filebox
• 3 Drawer box containing:
  • Printer paper
  • General office supplies
  • Aspirin and other basics
  • Button repair kit and other things it seems silly to mention but glad that I have when I need them.
• Honda Accord

With this setup I am completely autonomous with ready access to anything I need, wherever I am.

My tether back to the office and society at large consists of my Blackberry and my AT&T Aircard. In those rare instances where I am out of range, I can go all analog but I have not faced that issue yet.

There are a few enhancements and equipment changes I would make now that I have practical experience which I will share as I go.

Toshiba Satellite L300 series laptop.

PROS: Good looking laptop, 15.4” screen is easy to work with on the road, built in camera works well for field Skype video calls with the AT&T Aircard.  Microsoft Vista is well behaved for me, the wireless connectivity is simple and less cranky than what I am used to.

Was able to record a video (Sony Handycam), download it, edit it, add sound from iTunes and burn it to DVD for a last minute project. It was not Hollywood quality, but the end result was far easier and more professional than I expected being in the middle of nowhere with only the raw footage and the built in tools the laptop came with.

CONS: The battery life is  not so good. If it was not for my power inverter and being able to recharge on the fly, many times I would have been dead in the water.

Packed in my bag, the laptop screen keeps getting squeezed to the point the keys were leaving light marks on the screen.  The solution is to either not pack the bag so full or buy a piece of felt and cut it to the dimensions of the laptop and place the felt between the keyboard and screen for an added level of protection.

The plastic case is so shiny that everytime you touch the thing it leaves fingerprints. Not a big deal rolling around a territory, but it has to be cleaned up before customer presentations. I eventually just started packing electronics cleaning wipes in the bag to keep the thing clean which is not something I have had to do or would have even thought about in the past.

The touchpad is touchy.  At one point the pointer was moving around following my finger as my finger hovered ABOVE the touchpad. I was not even touching the thing! After a few adjustments I got it under control. Everyone else I know just breaks out the wireless/portable mouse and avoids the whole touchpad issue.

AS A SALES TOOL: I would really look for a laptop with a longer battery life or work out how you are going to address the need for power in the field.

The sales process for what I am doing at present requires that three or more documents get filled out and signed, typically at our first meeting for our process to begin and docs to be signed at completion.

Buy an extra power adaptor so you are not perpetually spending the first and last ten minutes anywhere finding cords, wrapping and unwrapping them and trying to keep them all sorted out.

In retrospect I would get a touch screen model and fill out the documents electronically and submit them via Aircard back to the office.

AT&T USBConnect Mercury Aircard

In my end of the world the AT&T Aircard has great coverage and gets the job done. Easy to install in 10 minutes or so. Good download speeds. It has a built in Micro SD slot that I never have used.

Skype

With the built in webcam I found I use Skype more than I have in the past. It comes in very handy for communications back to the office but I get the most enjoyment out of doing Skype video calls with my family when I am on the road and connected to the hotel wireless LAN.

Neat Receipts Software/Scanner

This, surprising to me, is one of my favorite tools in my bag. Sometimes my Toshiba laptop does not recognize the scanner when I plug it in which I fix with a reboot. I am sure there is a better way to solve the problem but the Toshiba is still new and quick so a reboot is fast. This tools plays nice with both Mac and PC hardware.

The scanner is great for capturing paper versions of documents you need to email/fax, but the software brings a lot more to the table. Neat Receipts uses standard OCR or optical character recognition software and then some sort of secret sauce that makes it much more efficient to use than a standard flatbed scanner. The software lets you scan in your receipts as the name implies, business cards and documents for filing, synchronization with Outlook, exporting to a searchable pdf format, other Office applications, Quicken QuickBooks, TurboTax or in text format. The instructions say the database can hold up to 1.5 million receipts.

It connects via USB and is powered off of the USB port.

The scanner captures all of the data on the receipt and does a pretty good job of determining the restaurant and other details that can be annoying to deal with. It also lets you tag the receipts for reimbursement or tax planning purpose cutting expense report time down from several hours to just a few minutes. I am a big fan.

The business card scanner is solid. It uses the same type of technology the receipt capture software does and does a good job of capturing the data and giving you a color or black and white copy of the card as well. Once the data is captured it can be synchronized with Outlook to create a contact for you.

The documents tab does just what it says. It lets you scan single or multi page documents in, index them and save them to your preferred location, manipulate the file type or send them to another application.

I have used this tool to capture original customer docs where copies were not available so I did not have to request originals or hit Kinko’s.  I can also scan in signed documents so my pricing desk can begin work immediately or get contracts in and processed before they expired. Great tool.

I would buy Neat Receipts just for the time it saves me on expense reports, the other functions are just a bonus as far as I am concerned though not having to manage piles of business cards is a nice secondary perk.

HP H470 Mobile Printer

I have not used this printer much, but when it is needed it is invaluable.

The printer is Bluetooth capable but the model you buy at the store will most likely not come with the Bluetooth adaptor. The adaptor is $60 when ordered from HP, but it is cheaper to buy the printer with the adaptor already, better known as the HP H470wbt model. That model also comes with an extended life Lithium-ion battery and a protective printer sleeve. It works with PC and Macs as well.

my printer, the base printer has no case or cover.  You can buy a simple cover for $40 from HP.  At least Neat Receipts came with a small velvet bag for the scanner. So, you are going to need to have a bag big enough bag to hold the printer and keep it safe and secure or deal with the logistics of toting around a five pound black box the size of a loaf of bread everywhere you go.  HP has a bag that they will sell you for $85 that will do the job, of course.

I would also recommend having a plastic storage case for the ink cartridges when not in use if you do not use it a lot.  Of course it does not come with one but HP will be happy to sell you one ($15).  I would also recommend packing extra ink cartridges. Nothing worse than having everything you need in the field to do your job but ink. It does come with a rechargeable battery, cords and software.

The paper tray holds 50 pages, but I have never loaded it with more than 10 and it prints up to 18-22 pages per minute according to HP.  There is no duplexing or automatic stapling, but they have to leave a feature or two out for future models, right?

The printer uses the same dual cartridge configuration of desktop inkjet printers (cartridges 94, 95,97 and 98 fit it plus a photo cartridge, etc.)

Fully setup with the laptop, scanner and printer with wires everywhere in some cases, I see the value of having the Bluetooth connectivity.

That is my rolling office.

I keep the laptop, scanner and printer in my rolling bag. My sales binder won’t fit in the bag with the printer, but that is not a big issue for me unless I am flying somewhere. I keep the file box and the 3 drawer plastic box stuck to the floor of the trunk with Velcro. I use a stretching cable with hooks to keep the drawers in place and strapped down.

If I am working out of a rental car I take my rolling bag and sales binder with a few empty folders and print and scan what I need on the fly.

It is easy to find yourself spending too much time managing cords and battery life. Plan ahead and go Bluetooth wireless where possible, buy extra power adaptors for places you frequent and keep USB cords around with standard and mini connections to recharge your phone or other accessories off of your laptop in a pinch. Leaching electricity off of my laptop for my phone kept me from going radio silent at a critical juncture in France last year when Air France gave my luggage an all expense paid trip to Nice without me.

Now, tell me how you roll.

Illustration courtesy of http://www.jesperdeleuran.dk

I have responded to several variations to questions like “Is cold calling still effective?” with a range of answers.

My long standing official position has been that there is always going to be a right time and place for cold calling no mater how advanced LinkedIn, Face book, MySpace, Twitter, texting, email, mail, flares and smoke signals get as communication tools.

The last two months have proven my point.

Cold calling is simply a sales tool and that is how you should look at it. I am not suggesting you roll cold calling into your mix of sales tools by default, I am just saying you need to understand where and when cold calling fits and makes the most sense.

For the last few months I have been working on sales strategies for an energy company trying to figure out the best mix of tools to reach new customers for them. (Their customer being anyone using electricity with a superset of products where one or more energy source is deregulated.)

The company had a solid referral model in place and a secondary simple lead generation system. Missing from the equation were websites, newsletters, white papers, opt in communications and a strong lead development engine.

To the company’s credit though, they had spent a great deal of time refining the sales forms, sales process and field sales to its simplest form on their operating budget. The field sales tools were truly outstanding and visionary when compared to other large and small field sales forces I have worked with.

The referral model in place was exceptional with a close ratio of 1:2 calls. The quantity and location of the referrals led to a lot of time being wasted with travel no matter how efficiently the call plan was setup. To mitigate the lost time I employed an extremely simple cold call strategy.

For every referral business I visited, I would cold call, or walk in, five businesses in the immediate vicinity with the hopes of at least getting some new leads and at best signing up new customers.

The company’s products worked well with this strategy, requiring no up front commitment or cost, played on the customer’s curiosity, and in the end would almost definitely save them money with a sub 30 day ROI.

All that was needed was a good simple but short explanation of how a company could benefit by our services and the cold call strategy was ready to deploy.

Walking in anything from a local SMB business to a large name brand global organization, at random with no contact name, led to a close ratio of 1:10 calls. For the record, none of the large national/global companies were signed at the time of the cold call, but the process was effective for finding contacts, meeting assistants and doing general sales groundwork that may or may not have been possible with Hoovers or other online tools.

In this particular situation it was effective enough to help me meet an established reps quota my first month in a city I had never been to before and talking to people I never met.

The point is cold calling is still an effective tool. The most effective? No, not by a long shot, but one worth keeping in your bag when your product or sales process works in short, initial meeting types of sales engagements.

Being effective as a field sales representative, trying to beat your quota and break the compensation plan in your favor takes some intelligent work and careful use of your time. As a rule, random cold calling would not be a strategy I would employ or even recommend for those two endeavors unless it just flat out makes sense in your situation.

I know Gitomer and a whole host of sales gurus and probably more than a handful of you would/will say cold calling is for suckers. All I can say is that the last two months cold calling earned me more suckers than the number of days I have been walking on this planet with plenty left over for you, too.

Sometimes it’s good to be sucker.

Image courtesy of http://www.hitched.ca

Have you identified all the areas where you create value for your customer?  Do you communicate all of the value you create? 

 Over the last few weeks I have been working with a sales professional struggling to figure out where he could create value for his customers.  His focus on creating value began and ended with his products and the problems his products solved for his customers. 

 I asked him to broaden his definition of “creating value” and with that we began to uncover some new exciting ways he could create some value for his customers.  As a bonus I got a few new ideas of my own.  Here is an absolutely incomplete list of ideas that might help you find some new ways to create some value during your own sales process. 

 NOTE: as a newly minted sales professional many years ago, I thought I determined where and when value was created for a customer and it took more than a few sales calls to slap that silly idea out of my head.  The customer is the ultimate judge on whether or not value has been created. 

Needs Identification Stage

 Help the customer identify what the problems are.  Some customers will have a clear understanding of the problems at hand, others may see a symptom or two, a few will have no idea there is a problem, let alone what to do about it.  In many instances you can create value by just knowing where to look. 

 Automaker Henry Ford asked electrical genius Charlie Steinmetz to build generators for his factory.  One day the generators ground to a halt, and the repairmen could not find the problem.  In desperation, Ford called Steinmetz, who tinkered with the machines for a few hours and then threw the switch.  Sure enough, the generators whirred to life and Steinmetz forwarded a bill to Ford a bill for $10,000.  Flabbergasted, the tightfisted carmaker inquired why the bill was so high. 

 Steinmetz sent Ford a new invoice. $10 – for tinkering with the generators.  $9,990 for knowing where to tinker.  Ford paid the bill.¹

Help establish a virtual meeting of influencers and decision makers to see a problem in 360 degrees and discover latent issues.  Very few organizations have a mechanism to allow multiple people across diverse but related parts of the company to take the time to sit around one table, identify and solve problems.  You can provide that mechanism by visiting with each member separately and sharing the results. 

Evaluation Stage

 Filtering information to find the right solution.  There are more products and more ways to go about solving a problem today than ever before.  Value can be created for a customer looking for an expert to help them map their needs to the right solution for them.  The less a customer knows the higher that value creation can become.

 Help fill gaps in your customer’s knowledge about the latest technology or solutions available.  For customers that make purchasing decisions every few years, expert knowledge amassed in 2005 may not serve them well when making a decision today.  Helping a customer catch up on current technology and/or helping them maintain their role of internal “expert” can create value.

 Build a solution based on the years of experience.  An honest expert opinion from someone specializing in solving just the sort of challenges a business is facing creates value.  

Purchase Stage  

 Make the process easy, convenient and as painless as possible.  For reoccurring transactional purchases driven by price in particular, a simplified purchasing process vs. your competitor can make a significant difference in which company gets the business.

 Helping customers get solutions they need but do not have the desire to fight for.  One of my customers needed to rebuild his company’s technology infrastructure, but he could not bring himself to wage the internal political battle necessary to accomplish this task.  I tried to create value by teaming up with him to help him achieve his objective.  He steered us through the necessary internal meetings I shot down the obstacles that got in our way.  I created value in this instance just by being willing to help and provide support where needed along the way.

 Establishing relationships in purchasing can help you help your client get projects pushed through or speed the approval process.  Having a good relationship with a customers purchasing department can be very beneficial.  In one odd circumstance I found myself creating value just by being the liaison between my customer and their internal purchasing department because there was such animosity between the two groups.

 Creative term structuring.  Having a customer that is ready to buy but short on the necessary budget can be an opportunity to create some significant value.  Creative terms worked out between vendors, distributors, manufacturers, and leasing companies have won some massive projects for me that otherwise would have been lost. 

—

“Creating Value” for a customer or prospect does not have to come from your product or service alone.  Value can come from anywhere and it is up to you to find it.  Anything from a strong familiar company name to the way a delivery person acts when facing end clients can create value for the customer.    

 This has by no means been an exhaustive list and I would like to get your input so we can add more ideas to make this a stronger tool.  Where do you “create value” for your customers?  Send me your ideas and I will add them to the list. 

Before a decision to purchase is made, be it a newspaper or multi-million dollar project, a buyer has to evaluate the risks of making that purchase.

The basic types of risk are:

1. Physical Risk – The risk of injury by using the product or making the purchase.

2.Financial Risk – The chance you could lose money, or have to repair or replace an item.
3. Functional/Time Risk – The risk the item will not perform as expected or deliver the benefits promised or risk related to the passage of time and the possibility of rapid obsolescence.
4. Social Risk – The risk associated with what friends, co-workers, the boss, a spouse will think and do if a purchasing decision is made, including the risk of being fired from a job based on a purchasing decision. Hence the old tagline “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”
5. Psychological Risk –The risk of experiencing “buyer’s remorse,” feeling bad, feeling guilty or other negative emotions for making a purchase decision.

All five of these risks are part of every purchasing decision. How you build your case to offset these risks for your buyer will determine how likely and how successful you are at closing the sale.

Bob Taska, a world class customer service driven car dealer, in his book “You Will Be Satisfied” took an interesting approach to eliminate some or all of all five risks when the quality of cars coming from Lincoln-Mercury were showing up on his lot with more than a few defects attributed to poor assembly from 1967 through the early 1980′s. He began a practice of what he called “blueprinting” the new cars, or rebuilding each car to the manufacturers design specifications. He advertised and sold his “blueprinted” cars at a 5% premium to cover his costs, developed a unique product, eliminated the risks associated with buying a Lincoln-Mercury at the time, developed a loyal following, and earned enough credibility to sell his cars from that point forward without the typical haggling associated with a car purchase.

Assess the Risks of Doing Business with You

Take a step back and look at your company, your brand, your products, your service, sales team, your overall reputation and what your customers are saying, accurate or not, identifying your strengths and weaknesses in each risk category from your perspective. Then repeat the exercise from a customer or likely prospects perspective.

Depending upon your sales cycle, you may want to look deeper than just the prospect you are meeting with. Will your prospect need additional risk mitigating information to defend his or her purchasing decision or materials they can use to help sell your solutions internally to people you may or may not have access to?

It would be a mistake to lump your company, your staff and your products together as you make your assessment. Weigh each one (Company, Product Category, Team, Product) separately to get a more honest assessment as strengths in one area may offset weaknesses in other areas.

Example 1: The strength of the IBM brand could offset some of the risk associated with a new, never heard of computer product. On the other hand, the IBM name would not carry much weight if that new product was a loaf of bread.

Example 2: A trusted sales professional could add credibility to a product with his long term clients by putting his/her stamp of approval on the product just as a less-than-reputable sales professional could add so much risk for a potential prospect that they would not even want to hear about the product.

Example 3: Toyota’s strength in building quality cars and being dominate in the electric/hybrid car category, thanks to the Prius, would most likely offset some risk associated with a brand new electric/hybrid car.

Example 4: The (social) risk I place on buying a $10 toy for my daughter is medium because I am concerned about buying something she will like, that will not be a waste of money (financial risk – medium.) The risk my 8 year old daughter places on buying a $10 toy is high, because it takes her a while to earn $10 (financial risk – high) and she has few opportunities to go to the store and shop (psychological risk – medium to high, functional/time risk – high,) and her friends might make fun of her when they hear about it (social risk – high) so it takes her a long time to make a buying decision. If there is a Pogo stick or Rollerblades involved, now there is physical risk to contend with as well.

How Risky is it to do Business with You?

Risk is part of life and certainly part of the purchasing decision. Take the time to make an honest assessment of the risks of doing business with your company from the prospects perspective and uncover the areas where you might be vulnerable.

What can you do to eliminate the risks associated with your products or services? How can you add enough “credibility” to your new company to outweigh the risks of doing business with you vs. a name brand leader in your field?

I would really like to hear what you come up with. Need some ideas? I am just a quick email away val {at} saleslaundry.com.

Image courtesy of thesituationalist.wordpress.com

Early into my sales career I found myself working in a regional electronics and appliance store trying to figure out how to sell the stuff I was surrounded by but had ignored my whole life growing up, appliances.

The #1 reason I wanted to know how to sell appliances was not for the noble purpose of being a knowledgeable source of information for customers; it was for a far more selfish reason, I wanted to beat Davis.

Even on my first day as a trusty new representative, I could see Davis was not a man to be trusted. He had shifty eyes, a smirk like he knew something you didn’t, and a good decade of experience on the rest of us. Picture Snidely Whiplash without the top hat.

Davis was the number one sales rep my first month at the store. He was also number one each and every month he had ever worked there. He was a selling machine and was being paid stupid money compared to the rest of the sales team.

How could a guy that looked about as trustworthy as a snake in a cage full of furry mice continually outsell every other guy on the floor? Why didn’t the customers see right through that stupid grin?

Trying to figure it out, I asked each and every other rep what they thought his secret was before my first two months was at an end.

“He just lies and tells them stuff to get the sale.”

“He has been here so long he has repeat customers that wait for him.”

“He steals sales on your day off.”

“The owner throws extra special customers his way.”

“Customers just don’t understand what a shyster he is.”

“He has good product knowledge.”

And finally…

“He is just good.”

It seemed easy to believe the repeat customer part, or that he had built up a client base that would come back to see him, but that did not make sense if he was lying to every customer he sold to.

The only thing I could see as a tangible difference was his product knowledge, so I set about learning about every item in the store. Anytime a manufacturer’s rep would come in the store I would quiz him about every feature and benefit to every box in the building that we carried.

I studied owner’s manuals (this was long before the Internet) and product sales literature. I watched the TV commercials to see how they were pitching the products. I even went to other appliance stores to watch reps, ask questions, and in general try to be an information sponge.

Finally, after six months of careful painstaking study I knew the story and feature set behind every product in the building and I thought for certain the very next month would spell the end of Davis’ streak of consecutive months at being number one.

I beamed with pride the first day of the month because I crushed Davis’ totals. I sold $2000 worth of merchandise, Davis sold $359 worth. Of course, it was a hollow victory, as that had been Davis’ day off and his one sale was a customer coming back with his card to buy a TV.

Day two, though, I was ready. I had a two pronged attack planned. I had massive product knowledge and I was fast, so I could out run Davis to the customers. I was certain with knowledge and speed combined, Davis would be doomed.

Davis crushed me.

Day 3. Davis crushed me.

Day 4. I was off. Davis crushed me.

Day 5. I was working. Davis crushed me.

With few moments of triumph, which I had already accomplished a time or two before I set my new strategy in play, that is how the entire month played out.

Finally, I decided Davis must have access to product knowledge through his experience I just did not know, so I decided to ask him how to sell Maytag washing machines, because Davis sold them better than anybody and they were expensive compared to the other brands for the most part.

What Davis said that day changed my perception of sales every subsequent day for the rest of my sales life.

He said “When a customer likes the Maytag’s, I sell them a Maytag. When a customer likes the Kitchenaid, I sell them a Kitchenaid.”

Don’t worry; it took me a bit of thinking to unlock the brilliance of that statement as well, so I followed up his statement with a very succinct question.

“Huh?” David laughed at me, looking at me like I was a little boy playing a game for the grownups.

“When the customer likes the Maytag, I tell them about how the small agitator in the Maytag washer is easy on their cloths, because friction with the agitator makes the cloths wear out more quickly. Maytag moves the water through the cloths, not the clothes through the water. Plus they are easy to repair yourself with front access and pieces that are user serviceable.” He said. “When a customer likes the Kitchenaids, I explain how the large agitator in the washer does a fantastic job of churning the cloths and scrubbing them clean as Kitchenaids move the cloths through the water and there are no belts that need replacing like there are on the Maytag’s. Get it?”

“Yes.” I said. I lied. It took even more thinking that night to figure out what he just said then it hit me like, like, like a truckload of Maytag washing machines.

I realized I had done all the research; from Consumer Reports to vendor reps and manuals, etc. and I had decided, based on my expert opinion, which products were the best and those were the ones I tried to sell everyone. If they did not see the brilliance of my logic, I would continue to whack them over the head with facts demonstrating why I was smarter than them and why they should pick the product I was recommending.

As a result I only sold customers I could shoehorn into what I thought was best, and I was taking way too long with the ones that were not listening, meaning Davis was selling more and getting to more customers.

Davis would steal a sale or two on your day off if you would let him, but he never tried to swim upstream with a customer unnecessarily to get them to buy what he thought was best. To his credit, the one the customer bought was the best one because that was the one that got him paid, not the guy at the appliance store across the street.

If you are selling multiple brands of essentially the same basic product, try to understand what each individual brand of that product type is trying to hang their hat on, so to speak.

There will be products selling on no other value than being the lowest price in the category, there will be products that try to offer a unique feature or service that they will try to differentiate themselves with and there will be the top of the line, feature rich models.

Which one should you sell? All of them. Ask your qualifying questions and listen to the answers. Let their needs and wants drive what you sell, not some preconceived notion of what you think is best.

Listen then educate, never dictate or pontificate.

I love cheesy sales one liners.

Image courtesy of newsday.com

Yesterday I wrote about looking at what you sell with new eyes and finding ways to simplify the buying process for your customer.  To spur your creativity I am going to tell you what another company is doing to simplify a process they invented.

For years, I have written off Domino’s pizza as “college pizza” or the pizza you order when you are too broke to order anything else.  After looking online for pizza delivery one night, I decided to give Domino’s a shot for nostalgia purposes alone.

 What I found on their site was an evolution of Domino’s original pizza delivery model, making plain old pizza delivery arguably more personal, more consistent and flat out easier on the buyer.  I got my pizza and another great example of making buying easy all in 30 minutes or less and I am happy to say their idea was more innovative than finding a new place to stuff cheese.

Domino’s pioneered pizza delivery and in the process brought about the age old process of keeping a stack of expired pizza coupons in the drawer by the telephone, scouring the coupon sections of telephone books, calling in and asking about the specials, placing your order and getting the standard 40 minutes to an hour estimated delivery time.  Domino’s changed all that by integrating online ordering like their competitors, but unlike their competitors, they developed the “Pizza Tracker” (see image.)  

Click Thumbnail for Full Size Image

 I was able to build my pizza with a simple graphic interface; my coupon was automatically deducted from my purchase price, I confirmed my order and paid in less than two minutes.  It was an easy process that started delivering unexpected value for me as soon as the “Pizza Tracker” loaded up.

 The “Pizza Tracker” tells me that Li is doing the prep work on my pizza and shows my pizza moving from the Prep phase through the Bake phase and Box phase.  At 5:21 Li hands my pizza off to Scott who departs the store at 5:23 and arriving at my house at 5:33 with a ring of the doorbell.  

•  No more calling. 
• No more errors relaying the order. 
• No more coupons to track.
• No more wondering where your pizza is.
• No more calling back an hour later realizing they forgot your order or made it carry out by mistake.
• As a bonus, you get the names of the people that are working to make and deliver your pizza.

 The pizza met my expectations, it was the easiest order I have ever placed, and I got unexpected value out of the “Pizza Tracker” feature that was just part of the transaction.  Getting to see my order processed in real time by real people made me feel more confident that my order was going to be correct, and get to me on time.   More importantly, I will likely be back to order again.

Not resting on their success, Domino’s has found yet another way to simplify the pizza purchase process.  Forget the computer, that is so 400 words ago, now all I need is a remote and my TiVo.

 If Domino’s can improve the art of pizza delivery, how can you improve the process of buying your product for your customer?  Can you make a change that brings a measurable competitive advantage and wins additional loyalty from your customer base?

 *Domino’s Pizza is the world’s largest pizza delivery company with 19% of the domestic pizza delivery market, inventing the pizza delivery category.  Pizza Hut, largest company by sales, holds 17% of the domestic pizza delivery market, Papa John’s nails down third with a comfortable 10%.  Source: Domino’s Investor Presentation – April 2008