VSA
Strategic Guide to Build Your Business
Volume 8, Issue 1, September 2013
in this issue
:: How Cold Calling can help with New Product Launches
:: Is Someone Stealing From You?
"The Business Builder" is brought to you by VSA, Inc. in collaboration with Rink Consulting. VSA, Inc., founded by Valerie Schlitt, builds and implements B2B prospecting programs for businesses and professional service firms. VSA has a team of professional telephone callers who open doors to new business opportunities for VSA clients. Linda Rink, president of Rink Consulting, specializes
in B2B and consumer marketing and research. Both Wharton MBA graduates, Valerie and Linda often team together to help clients identify and reach new customers. In this newsletter, they share some of their business development insights.

How Cold Calling can help with New Product Launches

Valerie picture

by Valerie Schlitt,

President of VSA, Inc.  

  
Good News. We're seeing increasingly more com-panies bring new B2B products and services to market.   
  

Because many of these offerings are so new, we've taken note of common challenges:  

  • The companies don't always know who the exact decision makers are. Often they don't know the size company, or department that will need the offering.
  • Our clients don't know what kind of targets to set for results. (My response is always: "That's why we do a pilot.) Still businesses like to have some way of projecting results.
  • Even more important, these clients don't know for sure if the telephone is a good way to introduce their services.

Cold calling - whether VSA supports the effort or whether the companies do the work in-house - can help address these challenges.


Identify the Decision Maker

 

True story:  We are working with a new client right now who has an amazing new offering.  The firm is targeting banks.  Any bank who purchases our client's service will easily recoup the investment multi-fold.


However, our client does not know its decision maker.  VSA is therefore spending virtually all of our time navigating banks (and also using Internet tools) to find the decision makers.

 

Luckily, our client understands the challenge, and VSA is providing excellent market intelligence as we identify decision makers.  Cold calling, coupled with Internet research, is virtually the only way to identify decision makers.

 

Lesson for new product introductions:  You may have to invest upfront in market intelligence and list updates before you can proceed to true telephone prospecting.  Make sure this additional effort is part of your budget.

 
Set Target Results
 

Another true story:  A recent client launched a pilot for a relatively new Internet -based service.  Neither VSA nor the client had a sense of how successful the campaign would be.  I anticipated the product had potential, but I doubted it would be a roaring success.

 

But, as I say, "That's why we do a pilot." 

 

Our calling team started calling and the results were astonishingly high.  But, could they be sustained over time?  Our pilot would tell us.  After completion of the pilot, we confirmed that results held virtually constant week after week.  The Return on Investment was exceeded, and our client has continued with us.

 

Lesson for new product introductions:  A best guess in advance of the pilot is often just that - a guess.  Without any track record, a pilot is required to project results.

 

Determine if the Telephone is the Right Promotional Tool

 

A final true story:  A recent client came to us with a truly competitive offering, with direct and immediate benefits to any firm who wants to be found on the Internet.  And, the offering was extremely affordable.

 

Our client estimated the number of appointments needed to make the telephone pay off.

 

In the end, we just couldn't set enough appointments. The new offering was a "better mousetrap" but didn't address a perceived need within the target market.  

 

A cold calling pilot worked only to the extent that it ruled out this method of prospecting.

 

Lesson for new product introductions:  Even if the product is excellent and affordable, it may not meet a current perceived need and the telephone will simply not be the best tool for your offering.  

 

At VSA we love to help with new product introductions.  However, New-to-Market offerings have unique challenges that established products don't have.  It's best to know these challenges in advance.

VSA, Inc.
441 Station Avenue
Haddonfield, NJ 08033
856-429-5078
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Is Someone Stealing From You?

Linda Rink Photo

by Linda Rink, President of Rink Consulting

 

They say that imitation is the best form of flattery.  Perhaps sometimes, but not when your words are used by someone else without any credit given to you.  That kind of imitation is called plagiarism.

 

Copying content without acknowledgement from a website, blog, or other published communication is unethical, whether or not the material is copyrighted (and if the material is copyrighted, it's illegal).  Just because it's "out there" on the internet does not mean it's free for the taking. 

 

Is someone stealing your content?  I'm not an alarmist, but there is probably more unauthorized copying going on than we realize.

 

Case in point:

Recently I was researching white papers for a project and came across three advertising agency websites which posted the same E-zine article as though it had been written by a staff member.  One gave the original author credit (although in very small type).  The others did not.  Not identifying the author is clearly plagiarism, and makes me question the professionalism of the offending agencies.  Would you want to do business with them?

 

How do you know if you are a victim? 

There are specific internet tools that can help, and many of them are free.  Some allow you to check both documents and web pages. Here are a few popular ones:

  • www.plagiarismchecker.com
  • www.duplichecker.com
  • www.copyscape.com 
  • www.doccop.com

You can also do a quick Google or Bing search, using quotation marks around your text.

 

Copycat domain names are also a form of stealing.  Want to see If someone has set up a domain name very, very similar to yours?  Check www.GoDaddy.com or www.domaintools.com.

 

What can you do to minimize the chances of being plagiarized? 

If your content is extremely valuable to you, you should protect it by registering it with the U.S. Copyright Office (www.copyright.gov).  Then be sure to prominently display � and the appropriate language on every page of the document.  Short of that, diligence is your best weapon, so periodically run your content through one of the online plagiarism checkers.

 

Are you guilty?

I suspect that most cases of plagiarism are due to laziness or simple unawareness, rather than malicious intent.  Try this experiment: 

 

Type this phrase into Google Search, with the quotation marks: "We are a full-service accounting firm dedicated to providing our clients with professional, personalized services and guidance in a wide range of financial and business needs."   I just got 93,400 results.   All 459 displayed entries seem to be legitimate accounting firms.  Granted, this phrase is pretty generic and not a unique creative thought.   But did 459 firms really come up with these exact words on their own?  Doubtful.  Chances are, someone read the description elsewhere and thought it sounded pretty good--good enough to use for themselves.  You can see how easy it is to do.

 

Make sure that your staff understands the seriousness of plagiarism, so that they do not inadvertently pilfer someone else's work.  Depending on the content, even paraphrasing can be construed as plagiarism.   When in doubt, run the proposed text through a plagiarism checker to make sure it does not closely resemble someone else's published work. 

 

Final note

I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give legal advice to those of you who have uncovered plagiarism of your written material.  Plagiarism is not technically a crime, but it is unethical.  Copyright infringement is very specific and can be either a civil or criminal offense.  What actions you can take will depend very much upon your particular situation.

 

Questions? Contact me at [email protected].

RINK Consulting
1420 Locust Street, Suite31N
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-546-5863