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Hold on a minute, how did we get to this time in the year? I know time appears to hasten as you grow older but this year started already. A few months back we were eagerly awaiting the last year closing and now we heading directly into the central hemisphere summer and towards a lot of heat. The  FMCG/OTC/Pharma companies with financial years closing in March will be presented with the stark reality that there are just a few hours to get your numbers in line for Q1 before HQ invites you to a “review discussion”. Hence a ct now to ensure you don’t get a one-way ticket as a present this season. This time of the year is also around the time many companies put their following Q2 Plans in place. Monstrous data collection spread-sheets will be dropping into inboxes all seeking improved performance. The recession is still with us but HQ wants top and bottom line improvement – so unfair! What surprises me though is that many executive...

As the most Pharmaceutical and Consumer Healthcare companies begin to gear up for the year this affords the perfect time to review how the overall global OTC market was at the beginning of 2014. Here is the overall ranking of the top 10 OTC companies: Here is the growth category wise of the of the top 10 OTC companies:  

    India, the land of spices has always appealed people by this sweet smelling and mouth watering foods and beverage recipes. Since people here are very fond of spicy snacks and delicious sweets, many indigenous and foreign industries started selling foods products in India made in both traditional Indian and overseas food recipes. Today, there are many companies in India which are successfully marketing their food products.  The best among them are listed below:   Nestlé  Nestlé is a Swiss Multinational Food and Beverage Company headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland.  Nestlé's deals in baby food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, pet foods and snacks. Nescafé, Nestea, Sunrise, KitKat and Maggi are few of nestle brand products which are widely marketed in India. And talking about Maggi, it is one such noodle which we all have tasted for endless times since our childhood.     Pepsi...

One day long ago a Sufi Master was near death, and wanted to make sure his three disciples would come under the guidance of another Sufi Master after he passed away.  He had accumulated 17 camels during his life, so he laid down the following instructions for his disciples: “On my death, the three of you shall divide my 17 camels in the following proportions: the eldest disciple shall have half of them, the middle in age disciple shall have one-third, and the youngest shall have one-ninth.”    He died soon after writing this bequest, leaving the disciples in a dilemma, so they sought out advice from learned men for how to interpret these instructions.  Someone told them just to make the nearest possible division, while another told them to own the camels communally until they reproduced.  A clever trader said they should just sell the camels and divide the proceeds among themselves, and a wizened old judge advised them that the bequest w...

Three facts you must face before you can simplify your sales message. Simple is great. No one has the patience to read pages and pages of sales collateral or sit through long complicated sales presentations. But if you’re really going to simplify your sales message, there are three hard facts you will have to face first: 1. This is no time for you to be the expert. You know too much. So you’re trying to say too much. Stop it. Save your expertise for later in the buyer’s journey when your prospect is asking detailed questions about your solution. Until then, just say enough to make them want more. 2. You will have less to show for all your hard work. Long sales presentations and big thick documents are impressive. They have awesome “plop factor” – showing the world in general and your boss in particular how hard you worked and how much you know. Warn your superiors right now that what’s coming is going to be shorter and simpler than anything they’ve seen before (but it will...

  I have sold photocopiers, faxes, printers, paints, antioxidants, antacids, creams, lotions, soaps, medical devices, pharmacy products, mobile phones, and a bunch of other consumer products. I am proud to be a professional sales person. Most people have the impression that working with a sales person is a negative experience.  We have all had an experience where we feel covered in slime by someone trying to sell us something irrespective of what we want or need. Professional sales people never do that.  The challenge is finding the professional sales people to work with when you want something. The job of a professional sales person is to quickly find out what you need and then to determine if it matches what he or she has to sell.  If there are multiple items that fit your needs but they have other factors that might not be suitable for you, that sales person is there to guide you through the choices. It is an absolute pleasure to work with a sale...

  Sales people are most often the glass-is-half-full people.  Being a sales road warrior is not easy. The day when I snapped this picture, my first thoughts were thanks for the great weather, light traffic, and the fact that my day on the road would soon be over. Many days I have pulled into home at well past midnight after an incredibly long day on the road.  I long ago lost track of the evenings where I would come in from dinner with customers only to spend the rest of the night in front of a computer catching up with company correspondence. I know my wife has told me that in my early years, that she only saw the back of head most weekends.  It is the rare sales manager who understands how hard you are working. Sales is a tough business, mostly because anyone who happens to be a manager thinks that they can also be a sales manager.  This is the case even if most of their sales experience comes from sitting through seminars.  To be a successfu...

   This is a collection of fun and funny quotable quotations about retail stores from well-known retail leaders like Ron Johnson and Tory Burch and famous comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Wright. For as long as there have been retail stores, people have had something funny to say about them. These quotes quotes about retail stores, department stores, hardware stores, bookstores, shoe stores, and drug stores are collected to make smile, giggle or laugh out loud. The quotes are arranged with the most fun and funny quotes first, according to the opinion of the article writer. Read all the quotes to see if you agree. Funny and Fun Quotations About Retail Stores: “Only in America - do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front of the store” - Anonymous "I went to a general store but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific.” - Steven Wright , American Come...

  Home delivery, a retail service format gaining momentum in India. Here we seek to understand and compare the purchase dynamics of making purchase decisions in an environment divorced from the physical retail environment versus those made in a regular kirana or modern store environment. Given these differences the marketers need to consider home delivery as a separate channel that merits specific marketing strategy and resources. Here we are putting forward thought starters in this area that can be leveraged for business development. Need to explore emerging niches in traditional landscapes   “A large part of our strategy for India is unlike our strategies in other markets across the world. As a 50-year-old company, it is easy to become set in your ways. You end up trying to duplicate your other successes in new markets as well. But to believe that old successes will drive new ones and to not change your ways -- an attitude that says "this is...

  PERSONAL SELLING: CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOR CONSUMER BUYING vs. ORGANIZATIONAL BUYING Final (or ultimate) consumers purchase for: personal, family, or household use Organizational consumers purchase for: further production, usage in operating the organization, and/or resale to other consumers Consumer Buying Behavior the decision processes and acts of final household consumers associated with evaluating, buying, consuming, and discarding products for personal consumption Consider the purchase an automobile. You generally will not consider different options until some event triggers a need, such as a problem needing potentially expensive repair. Once this need has put you "on the market", you begin to ask your friends for recommendations regarding dealerships and car models. After visiting several dealerships, you test drive several models and finally decide on a particular model. After picking up your new ca...

Sales meetings are a fact of life and business and they are important for a variety of reasons. They allow larger companies to address the entire sales team as a group. They offer opportunities to provide additional training (product, skills, and technical). They help keep your team up-to-date. And, they present a tremendous opportunity for your team to connect and develop stronger relationships with each other. Unfortunately, many sales meetings are unproductive and not nearly as effective as they could be.   Here are a few of the most common mistakes sales managers make when scheduling and running sales meetings. They try to pack too much information into the meeting. This often with larger organizations when the entire sales team only gets together once or twice a year. The meeting planner (Owner, President, Vice President, Sales Manager, etc.) believes that the more information that is reviewed, the better their return on investment. I recal...