The July meeting of the GKIC London Chapter took place on 22 July, 2014 at our current home in the City of London. Hosted by the irrepressible David White, the meeting was well attended with a mix of regulars and newcomers.
The first session was presented by this month’s guest speaker, Steve Catchick of “Performance Counts” (www.performancecounts.co.uk). Steve specialises in building high performance business leaders and teams.
The title of his presentation was “The Secret Sales Force” that exists within every business, has a massive impact on results and yet is overlooked by most people. What I’m referring to, of course, is the vast majority of people in any business who are NOT “officially” in “sales”. The reality is that everyone is in “sales” to some extent, even if they don’t realise they are. Pretty much every single contact with a customer or prospective customer has an influence on the relationship.
This is a HUGE topic and in just under an hour Steve really just scratched the surface. The 5 broad areas that need to be addressed to get the most from “The Secret Sales Force” are…
1. Mindset
2. Values and Beliefs
3. Communication
4. Relationships
5. Service
Certainly a thought-provoking talk from Steve who has considerable expertise and experience in this area.
In the main session, David White tackled the topic of…
…”How To Make A Bundle By Bundling”.
In marketing terms, “bundling” involves combining a number of products or services into a package that offers higher value to the customer in some form. The individual components may or may not be available separately.
David covered 6 good reasons to use bundling and the first 3 are…
1. Bundling boosts the average transaction size
2. Bundling changes the dynamics of price comparison, making it more difficult for customers to make a choice purely driven by low price
3. Bundling makes complete buying decisions easier and faster for customers. This convenience will be highly valued by particular groups
In contrast, the “cafeteria” approach (that is, letting people simply choose themselves from a list of products or services) has a number of significant disadvantages for marketers. In particular, it tends to make shopping purely on price easier.
David rounded out the session with some examples of approaches to bundling and a short break for group discussion produced some further examples.
Finally, the great Fergus McClelland presented a short case study of how he has used the idea of bundling in his own business.
As usual at the GKIC London Chapter meeting, plenty of opportunities to discuss business issues and ideas with like-minded folks.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday 19 August and you can get the details and reserve your place at the GKIC London Chapter meetings page.