Monthly Archives August 2013

August 7, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

Advocates of using the email marketing to drive sales tend to have a small library of well-chosen facts at their fingertips.

Check-out these eye-popping stats, for example.

Global email traffic stands at 166 billion emails a day; there are 3.84 billion email accounts – three times as many as all of Facebook and Twitter combined – and around 72 per cent of all users check their in box at least six times a day.

With a global average open-rate of around 20 per cent, about 5 per cent of these users click through to a web site in order to make a purchase and 83 per cent of this customer segment tend to have a higher propensity to spend more per transaction when marketed and sold...

August 7, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

In Part 1 we started to explore the different strategies for helping you create a bargain with a customer or client that will help close the deal.

Top Tip#6: Be a patient bargain hunter!

All too often in our desire to close a deal, as marketers we can often miss vital clues along the way when we want to strike a bargain with a customer or client.

We can also rush through the bargaining phase as well, particularly in light of our own sales and marketing targets!

The danger is that we are making premature judgments about what the options are as well as taking stock of what the customer or client actually wants.

It pays to remember a vital point made in my latest book, The Art ...

August 7, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

Let’s assume that you’ve reached a point where the customer or client is ready to buy!

You’re not home and dry until they’ve signed on the dotted line, are you? So how fast or slow this takes depends on how good you are at striking a bargain.

You may think this is easy, but it’s where deals are often lost. This is the period between negotiation and close of sale.

For example, let’s take the scenario where you’ve negotiated hard but can’t get the other person to cross the line. So you decide to ‘split the difference’. But this may not always work.

There’s a famous example of two sisters arguing over one orange left in the fruit bowl...

August 5, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle  4 comments

‘Global opportunities for sports marketing, infrastructure and consultancy services to 2022’ shows that UK companies could benefit to the tune of GBP 5.9 billion partly as a result of the 2012 Olympic Legacy.

The 260 page Report, with detailed analysis across ALL global markets and 17 specially commissioned infographics is published by International Marketing Reports  and is available as an immediate download at GBP 995.00.

Currently, the UK sports service sector earns around 50% of its income overseas and the London 2012 Games helped to provide the expertise to chase major international contracts worth GBP billions.

The report identifies opportunities for companies i...

August 2, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle  One comment

A few years’ ago I had the privilege to work with one of my heroes, Dr Edward de Bono, the grandfather of lateral thinking, in helping to launch his book, Think! Before It’s too Late.

The book launch was unlike others in that we decided that Edward de Bono should host a lunch for a cross-section of some remarkable people from all walks of life at the River Terrace at the House of Lords.

Edward de Bono conceived of a way in which we can solve problems by ‘wearing’ different coloured hats that had the power to break the habit of linear thinking or critical analysis that we tend to default to as a result of our narrowly constructed education experience in the West.

‘Six...