BS&T delivers successful strategies for a competitive marketplace
 

by Gary Wollenhaupt   

The third Business Strategy and Technology seminar followed the successful pattern of the previous two forums: powerful networking and thought-provoking discussions by leading speakers in their respective fields.

Forum and event founder Blake  of Blaze Communications and Consulting welcomed the attendees, who embodied a range of business people looking for new strategies for success.  From an IU student to business owners to real-estate agents and other executives, the BS&T attendees represent a cross section of businesspeople hungry for insight and usable information.

Boy, did they come to the right forum. The three speakers shared their knowledge, whetting the appetite for more.

Barbara E. Cohen, owner of Irvington Writers Studio, led the group through the basics of permission-based email marketing. No legitimate business wants to be branded a spammer for using this powerful communication tool, so knowing the in and outs of email is crucial. Barbara discussed the many uses of email marketing, from delivering news to inviting people to a meeting to building your company’s brand. All these purpose stem from the concept of offering useful information to the recipients of your email. In other words, content is king. She showed many examples of companies who use the capabilities of email to communicate in a colorful, engaging fashion without the cost of expensive printing. One of the secrets of email marketing is the ability to customize the message for different portions of the mailing list in a cost-effective way. Instead of mass marketing, it’s one-to-one marketing with a personal touch. Barbara shared numerous other insights from her experience as one of the city’s only independent email marketing consultants.

Jim Ensign, an early technology adopter and efficiency expert, shared his insights into the latest advancements in voice recognition technologies and “The Virtual Future.” As a self-proclaimed road warrior, Jim spends much of time traveling to client sites across the country. He relies on his unified communication system to help him manage his calls, faxes and email. This system will take messages, forward calls to his cell phone, send or print faxes via email, and even read email to him over the phone. He can then respond with a voice message sent to the other person’s email address. That way he can respond immediately without having to make a dial-up computer connection from the airport or a hotel room. With a virtual assistant, he can give his clients one phone number, which uses the system to find him, ringing his office phone, cell phone, home phone or going to voice mail. In his handout, Jim gave an illustration of a common business card. It lists a person’s home, office, cell, fax, pager number, email address and physical address. With this many choices, your customer has to work to find you. In contrast, a person using a unified communication system can provide only one number for voice and fax, and an email address. This makes it much easier for the customer to reach you by calling only one number. These systems are becoming more popular and coming down in price, making the virtual office assistant more affordable for the small-business person.

During the session breaks, attendees engaged in true networking by seeking ways to help one another be more effective. Those relationships may or may not result in doing business directly with one another, but will result in referrals and information sharing for everyone’s benefit.

The keynote speaker was the incomparable Bill Caskey. His inspirational message “Communicating Your Intrinsic Value” hit home with the audience of small-business persons who continually face competition and price-driven customers. To maintain control of the sales process, Bill advocates that a salesperson set the tone from the beginning of the customer contact by stating that a decision whether to proceed will be made in that meeting. If the decision is negative, then there’s no more need for contact. The process lets the client know you’re serious and you value the client’s time as much as your own. Bill offered startling advice for most small-business people: stop providing quotes or estimates. He estimates 90 percent of quotes don’t result in business and, in fact, detract from the ability to serve customers. Customers who shop only by price usually aren’t profitable customers anyway.

To this point, Serge Melki, CEO of Melsernet, offered an anecdote of a time when he put that theory into practice. A prospective customer called and asked for a quote on some computer hardware. Serge told him he wouldn’t provide a quote on components only, because Melsernet is a service provider. If the customer was interested only in the hardware, he could get it at lower cost somewhere else. Melsernet was interested in building a relationship and providing a solution, not selling hardware. The customer respected that approach and ended up doing business with Melsernet. Bill praised that situation as an example of his principles in action.

Fortunately, Bill was able to stay for lunch and shared more insights into his formula for business success over tasty barbecue chicken and ribs.  Participants were given a seminar packet containing informative handouts from the speakers, a tangible benefit that will bring value for months to come. Of course, the drawings were popular once again, with business books, software demo CDs, t-shirts, pens and other items going to lucky winners.  Thanks again to the sponsors who made this event possible: Serge Melki of Melsernet, Jason Locy of Missito, Ivy Tech, IndyWomenConnect, Visual Communications Design Studio and Blaze Communications and Consulting.