A man attended several exhibitions and seminar recently.
As usual, most of the exhibitors and attendees at such events asked for his name card or contact details so that they can follow up with him. After all, these are leads that they can follow up with and possibly close a deal. These same people are also eager to give out their name cards in the hope that he will contact them for more information. Most of the times, he would receive a follow up email from those people who have gotten his contact. For those he promised to send them an email when he ran out of name card, he would drop them a courtesy email. Without fail, all the emails and the reply emails that he received include a chunk of information of the their companies and products/services cut and paste from their website or brochure. Looks like a standard template they mass email out. A man was getting some professional advice from an ex-colleague who is a property agent.
The ex-colleague was lamenting about horrible customers she has to serve. The man said she can decides not to work with such customers. She replied, "I can't unfriend money right?" What she meant was if there's business to be done, there is no reason for her to reject deals. What do you think? A man attended a MICE exhibition.
He walked past a booth by one of the largest hotel group in the world and was attracted by what he saw. A Thai lady at the booth asked what business is the man in. He answered, "Marketing services." She replied, "We already have our own marketing people." A lady engaged a property agent to market her room for rental.
The agent found a tenant for her. They arranged to meet at Yakun coffee cafe at a shopping mall next to a MRT train station so that they can go through the contract. The lady came with her brother and cousin. The agent turned out to be one of the Top Sales Director. He looks every bit of a successful property agent from his appearance with a Rolex watch on his wrist, a Louis Vuitton wallet and what looks like an expensive leather bag on his hand. He offered to buy drinks. While queuing halfway, the agent came back to the table. He said, "Sorry, do you have cash with you? I only got $4 left." I attended a sales presentation yesterday.
One of the speaker was sharing some survey results with us. On one of the slides was a pie chart and his conclusion based on the result. The conclusion was "Low price leads to customer's loyalty." What do you think? Source : The Edge Singapore
I saw this article on The Edge Singapore website (click here for full article ). It was a shocking piece of news. No, it's not because of the lady standing to lose $250,000, which by any account is a lot a lot of money. Now, she was upgraded to the status of "accredited investor" by the bank based on her assets. According to the report, Singapore law allows banks to automatically classify individual investors as “accredited” if they have at least $2 million of assets or earned at least $300,000 in the previous 12 months. According to Wikipedia, to be considered an accredited investor in the United States, one must have a net worth of at least one million US dollars, excluding the value of one's primary residence, or have income at least $200,000 each year for the last two years (or $300,000 combined income if married) and have the expectation to make the same amount this year. As an accredited investor, he or she enjoys access to certain financial products that are not available to retail investors. This also means that he or she is given a greater range of investment choices but also lose some of the protections as an ordinary investor -- such as restrictions on selling him or her certain riskier products. Do you see the disconnect here? Financial institutions have all the most advanced financial tools and professionally trained expertise on financial products. Yet, what makes them think that a person who owns $2 million of assets can afford to take higher risk? Moreover, the assets they are talking about include property and car. When is car ever considered an asset? Unless you are talking about a vintage car, limited edition car or antique car, do you think the value of your car goes up or down as the years go by? Is property a liquid asset that can be converted into cash quickly when one needs to? Even if a person earns $300,000 in the previous 12 months, does it guarantee he or she will makes the same amount this year in this volatile economic condition? What if he or she makes $300,000 but spends more than that? Instead of looking at the assets of an individual or the income level, shouldn't they be looking at the risk appetite? Can he or she afford to lose all the money in the worst case scenario and yet not fall into financial difficulties? What about the level of financial knowledge an investor has and full knowledge of what exactly is he or she buying? But hey, that would potentially reduce and limits the number of clients that banks can sell their financial products to. HSBC said it stopped linking wealth-management relationship managers’ incentives to sales volumes since 2014. In reality, what do you think they will do to those sales staff who did not hit the target? Of course, when they upgrade you to the status of accredited investor, you can be sure they'll make you feel special and smart. A man submitted an application form for an auto-top up service with a government agency at one of its branch.
The agency will send him a letter to activate the service upon approval of his application. After one month, he still did not receive the letter. He called up the agency and the staff told him that the letter was sent out three weeks ago. It seemed that the letter was lost in transit. As the whole issue has been delayed for so long, he decided to pick up the letter personally at the head office, which luckily is near to his office. Why did the man take the trouble to go down to the head office? What would you have done if you were the staff? A man registered to visit an exhibition.
After receiving the email confirmation and while keying the details into his phone's calendar planner, he realized there was no information on the opening hours. He searched the website and couldn't find the information. He went to their Facebook Page and there's also nothing. Instead of emailing the organizer, he sent a message on Facebook Messenger to the company which he thought would probably get a faster response from them. The staff replied with a request for his email address so that they can email the information to him. He replied, "Would it be easier for you to just inform me over here?" Two elderly ladies were shopping for mooncake at a counter of a mooncake festival event in a shopping mall.
Two men came by. The ladies have chosen their choices and were about to make payment. That's when the staff told the ladies that they need to make payment by credit card in order to enjoy 20% discount. They said they do not have credit card and were at a loss. Should they go ahead with the purchase or not? Without the discount, the two boxes of mooncake would cost them $140 instead of $112 - a difference of $28. On seeing their predicament, one of the man offered to pay on behalf of them using his credit card and the ladies pay him back in cash. A mother boarded a bus with her 2 year old son.
Most of the window seats were occupied, leaving only seats by the aisle. Having no seats together, she got her son to sit on one side of the aisle while she seated to his left on the other side of the aisle. The boy was seated next to a lady. This lady helped the mom to hold her son and make sure he is seated properly. She chatted with the boy and played with him for a while. As the bus ride was jerky, she also helped to prevent the kid from falling off the seat together with the mom who was bending over the aisle watching over him. Halfway through the journey, the mom moved over to sit besides her son before finally letting him sit on her lap. The lady went back to looking at her iPad. Do you remember the story of the manager? (Click here)
The Customer Service Department is taken over by a staff who just came back from her sabbatical leave. So the manager is now without a department. Previously, he had a drastic pay cut to keep his position. What happened was he took a 20% pay cut and worked 4 days instead of 5 per week. Now, his pay remains the same but he has to work 5 days instead of 4. Is the company trying to make his life a little more difficult every day so he will quit and the company can saves on retrenchment benefits? The traditional grocery shop is located in an old estate.
The aisles are narrow. Shelves are old and not labeled which makes finding items difficult. Flooring is dirty. Items are all over the place. Everything from stocking, pricing and manning the cashier is done by the owner and his family members. It is very labor intensive as they are still sticking price labels on each and every item. The cashier has to manually key in the prices of items indicated on the price tag or based on their memory (no bar code scanning). They have to count their stock manually as there is no system in place to track the stock level. So when there are many customers, you just wait patiently in the queue as you watch the cashier punching in the prices. Of course, as a small business, they probably do not have the financial resources to invest in such a system. And it may not makes economic sense for them to invest in one as well if they do not have intention of expanding the business. Their only competitive advantage is that their items are cheaper than the large supermarkets. This is especially important to the poor and old people staying nearby. Even then, their items aren't the cheapest all the times, especially if the supermarket runs a promotion. The other day I was at the grocery shop to buy a packet of brown rice. I was deciding between two different brands, one all brown and the other a mixture of brown rice. Both are same price at $6.90. In the end I bought the mixture one only to realize that I've bought the wrong type that was recommended to my by my friend. So I took it back the next day to exchange it. Usually for exchange, you can only get another item of the same value or of a higher value as usually, businesses only allow you to do that if this condition is met. I told the Indian man at the cashier and showed the packet to him that it is still intact and not opened. He said, "Usually we do not allow exchange. But this time, I let you change." I told him, "Ok." I went to take the other pack and showed it to him that it's the same price. Then I told him I'll put the wrong one I bought back to the shelf. Before I left, the man said again, "Next time check properly before you buy. Next time cannot exchange." I've bought something wrongly and exchanging it for another item of the same price. He didn't even need to do anything like re-keying the item into the cashier. This will also not affect his stock taking as his cash system cannot detect which brand I bought as they are the same price. He did not lose out on Why was he so unwilling to do an exchange? What if the item I am exchanging for costs more? Wouldn't he be making more money? More importantly, he gets another happy customer with his good service. Will he be able to compete with the large supermarkets in offering the cheapest price? For how long can he continue doing it? Imagine if he allows his customers to exchange items that cost less and refund the difference. A lady works at a big organization with businesses spanning multiple industries.
She is interested to explore career opportunities in an entirely different industry within the organization and which she has no work experience in. She sent an email to the head of the subsidiary business which she is keen to work in. The head replied with a list of managerial post and commented that there are no positions available and suitable for her. On what basis did the head make the decision that the lady is not competent to take up the list of positions available? Based on the department and job title of the lady's email address? All without even taking a look at her resume or speaking with her? It took a few days to renovate the shop.
It took two days to fit out the shop with furniture and equipment for a hair salon offering $10 haircut service. It took three days and the salon is out of business. Now it's under renovation to convert to another shop. Fads come as quickly as they go.
Sometimes back, it was the bubble tea. Then we have the craze over frozen yogurt in the like of llao llao followed by everything to do with salted egg yoke. Recently, people were going gaga over a brand of milk tea from Taiwan - Chun Cui He, which means just drink. The demand for this bottled milk drink was so high that they were snapped up immediately when stock arrived. There was even a Page set up on Facebook to provide the latest update on availability of stocks, even up to the timing to go to the selected 7-11 outlets that retail it to ensure higher chance of getting your hand on one. It seemed many people were going all over 7-11 outlets in search of the tea, some to be greatly disappointed for being just a little bit slower than others. And there was a rumour of a guy buying 80 bottles of it at one go and even prevented others from buying. There is a stall owner who actually bought this drink at $2,80 each and reselling them for $5 at his outlet. And there's no shortage of willing buyers. As a consumer, you can also choose not to pay this price as it does not make a difference to you (unless you cannot live without it which is an exaggeration). The relevant government authority has since recalled and stopped the sale of this drink as it contained a non-permitted food addictive, although it does not pose a food safety risk, The food company that produces the milk tea will have to register and obtain approval for the food addictive that will takes up to a year. Singapore has its first case of Zika infection on 27th August. Stocks of insect repellents and medications are flying off the shelves in supermarkets with some completely out of stock. There are comments online about online retailers selling these hot items at highly marked up prices. It is not surprising for business owners to mark up prices especially when there is very strong demand for a product. People are afraid they will be infected by the Zika virus. Many of them are taking precautions especially for the pregnant moms and those with kids. It makes a lot of difference whether they buy these insect repellents and medications. No doubt, if you are selling these products now, you can make a huge profits by marking up as much as the market can accept. Even if the prices are exorbitant, people will still buy them for the sake of protecting their families health. They may even be happy and thankful to you that they can get their hands on these products. So will you hold your customers to ransom? Or you do not see these buyers as sheeps in line to be slaughtered? |
AuthorOutrageous Marketing Archives
May 2020
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