Newsletter Archive

Welcome to the second edition of Stratamar News. A number of items and situations crossed my desk over the past four weeks, so I decided not to wait until April for the second edition. As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to write, call, or email me at the address or numbers on the reverse. Also, if you have any colleagues or clients who would be interested in receiving this, just contact me and we’ll get them right on the list. Thanks for your interest.

Try to obtain your client’s birthday, anniversary, hobbies, etc., when you have your next conversation. A handwritten congratulatory note or news clipping about their hobby is much more welcome and personal than the best routine sales

When examining your client or prospect base to determine who should receive a sales piece on a new service, on what criteria do you segment? Age has traditionally been the most common initial cut, because it is easy to obtain and has historically indicated financial sales trends (e.g. credit users versus investment generators). However, American households are rapidly changing. For example, a former co-worker, a 55-year-old professional, was the recipient of countless solicitations from brokerage houses for retirement investments. Had these solicitors looked more deeply, they would have realized that this gentleman was on his second marriage and had two children under the age of 5. Just knowing that little extra data tells us that he would have been more interested in college funds than retirement funds, which he finally did buy on his own.

My wife and I have had some interesting dealings over the past month with about six lawn care companies (we’ve never used one before), where we’re trying to decide which one to hire for the summer. Because we’re developing our yard into a certified wildlife sanctuary, we’re very strict about the chemicals that can be used on our lawn.

So far, none of the companies soliciting us has been willing to detail what chemicals they would use for our situation. They’re willing to give price guarantees, assurances of safety, and corporate mission statements about caring, but not to answer the questions we ask. Needless to say, we’re still looking for a lawn care company.

I always thought the #1 rule in marketing was to listen to what the client or prospect is saying or asking. Instead, I’m seeing more and more marketing campaigns which are built upon raw repetition and volume of messages. It sometimes makes me feel as if Company X wants my business, but only after they tell me what my business is and will be!

Is your company already on the road towards dealing with possible computer problems resulting from moving from Year ‘99 to ‘00? If so, tell your clients what you are doing and why! The mainstream media are already building a lot of negative publicity about expected problems.

My consulting work requires a substantial amount of research. Fortunately, now, a good amount of preliminary research can be done over the Internet at any time of the day. Over the course of a typical week, I probably visit hundreds of different sites for various reasons. However, there are a few business-related sites to which I constantly return because of the value and depth of their information, especially for smaller businesses with limited in-house expertise in some areas. I offer these “favorite” sites below for your use, or your clients’ use, in hopes of streamlining everybody’s workload.

We hope you have found this newsletter useful and informative. If you would like to receive a copy of our future newsletters via email, just fill in the form at the above left with your email address and we will add you to our newsletter mailing list.