Marketing project report on ITC

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Before  I  get  into  the  thick  of  the  things  I  would  like  to  add  a  few  genuine  words  for  the people  who  were  part  of  this  project  in  numerous  ways.  People,  who  gave  unending  support right  from  the  stage  the  project  was  started,  appreciated  and  encouraged  when  being depressed.

In  this  context  I  would  like  to  express  my  gratitude  towards  my  parents  and  family  members who  have  constantly  supported  and  played  a  pivotal  role  in  shaping  my  career.

I  take  this  opportunity  to  express  my  gratitude  to  Mr. S. CHAKROVARTY (T.D.M) and Mrs. M.  Rama (HR) of  ITC who  have  given  me  an  opportunity  to do  the  project  in  their  esteemed  organization.

I  would  also  like  to  thank Mr. ARVIND and Mr. Kamal (MARKETING)  without  their  support  this project  couldn’t  have  been  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  now. I  owe  more  than  what I  can mention  mostly  for  teaching  me  to  see  the  silver lining  in  every  dark  cloud.

I  totally be  indebted  my  regards  to  my  External  guide  Mr.  S. Gupta  (C.E.)  and Mr. Ravi  (P.S.R.)  for their  co-operation  in  the  successful  completion of  the  project.

And  finally  I  would  like  to  thank  my  friends  for  their  unending  support.

Table of content

Chapter – 1

1.      Company Profile                                                                                             

a.       Nature of business

b.      Size of the business

c.       Market share

d.      Key Executives

e.       Type of Organization Structure

2.      SWOT analysis of your company                                                                     

3.      How is your company positioned vis – a – vis the competitors,

And what are the competitive strategies adopted by it?                                               

4.      Your role in the company                                                                                

5.      Performance Management System                                                                    

6.      Use of IT as a productivity enhancer in your organization                                   

7.      Any lacuna or area for improvement you have observed at your

Work place /organization and your suggestions for improving it.                        

8.      Learning experience                                                                                          

a.       Personal

b.      Professional                                                          

Chapter – 2   

                                                                                                           

Bibliography                                                                                                                        

                                                                             

Company profile

Nature of business

ITC was incorporated on August 24, 1910 under the name Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited. As the Company's ownership progressively Indianised, the name of the Company was changed from Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited to India Tobacco Company Limited in 1970 and then to I.T.C. Limited in 1974. In recognition of the Company's multi-business portfolio encompassing a wide range of businesses - Cigarettes & Tobacco, Hotels, Information Technology, Packaging, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Agri-business, Foods, Lifestyle Retailing, Education & Stationery and Personal Care - the full stops in the Company's name were removed effective September 18, 2001. The Company now stands rechristened 'ITC Limited'

As one of India's most valuable and respected corporations, ITC is widely perceived to be dedicatedly nation-oriented. Chairman Y C Deveshwar calls this source of inspiration "a commitment beyond the market". In his own words: "ITC believes that its aspiration to create enduring value for the nation provides the motive force to sustain growing shareholder value. ITC practices this philosophy by not only driving each of its businesses towards international competitiveness but by also consciously contributing to enhancing the competitiveness of the larger value chain of which it is a part."

ITC's diversified status originates from its corporate strategy aimed at creating multiple drivers of growth anchored on its time-tested core competencies: unmatched distribution reach, superior brand-building capabilities, effective supply chain management and acknowledged service skills in hoteliering. Over time, the strategic forays into new businesses are expected to garner a significant share of these emerging high-growth markets in India.

Size of the business

ITC is one of India's foremost private sector companies with a market capitalization of over US $ 30 billion and a turnover of US $ 6 billion.* ITC is rated among the World's Best Big Companies, Asia's 'Fab 50' and the World's Most Reputable Companies by Forbes magazine, among India's Most Respected Companies by Business World and among India's Most Valuable Companies by Business Today. ITC ranks among India's `10 Most Valuable (Company) Brands', in a study conducted by Brand Finance and published by the Economic Times. ITC also ranks among Asia's 50 best performing companies compiled by Business Week.

ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Information Technology, Branded Apparel, Personal Care, Stationery, Safety Matches and other FMCG products. While ITC is an outstanding market leader in its traditional businesses of Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards, Packaging and Agri-Exports, it is rapidly gaining market share even in its nascent businesses of Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Branded Apparel, Personal Care and Stationery.

ITC's Agri-Business is one of India's largest exporters of agricultural products. ITC is one of the country's biggest foreign exchange earners (US $ 3.2 billion in the last decade). The Company's 'e-Choupal' initiative is enabling Indian agriculture significantly enhance its competitiveness by empowering Indian farmers through the power of the Internet. This transformational strategy, which has already become the subject matter of a case study at Harvard Business School, is expected to progressively create for ITC a huge rural distribution infrastructure, significantly enhancing the Company's marketing reach.

ITC's wholly owned Information Technology subsidiary, ITC InfoTech India Ltd, provides IT services and solutions to leading global customers. ITC InfoTech has carved a niche for itself by addressing customer challenges through innovative IT solutions.

ITC's production facilities and hotels have won numerous national and international awards for quality, productivity, safety and environment management systems. ITC was the first company in India to voluntarily seek a corporate governance rating.

ITC employs over 26,000 people at more than 60 locations across India. The Company continuously endeavors to enhance its wealth generating capabilities in a globalizing environment to consistently reward more than 4, 14,000 shareholders, fulfill the aspirations of its stakeholders and meet societal expectations. This over-arching vision of the company is expressively captured in its corporate positioning statement: "Enduring Value, for the Nation, For the Shareholder."

Market share

ITC Limited (BSE: 500875) public conglomerate company headquartered in Kolkata, India.[1] Its turnover is $6 billion and a market capitalization of over $30 Billion. The company has its registered office in Kolkata. It started off as the Imperial Tobacco Company, and shares ancestry with Imperial Tobacco of the United Kingdom, but it is now fully independent, and was rechristened to Indian Tobacco Company in 1970 and then to I.T.C. Limited in 1974

The company is currently headed by Yogesh Chander Deveshwar. It employs over 26,000 people at more than 60 locations across India and is listed on Forbes 2000. ITC Limited completed 100 years on 24 August 2010.

ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Information Technology, Branded Apparel, Personal Care, Stationery, Safety Matches and other FMCG products. While ITC is an outstanding market leader in its traditional businesses of Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards, Packaging and Agri-Exports, it is rapidly gaining market share even in its nascent businesses of Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Branded Apparel, Personal Care and Stationery.

ITC's aspiration to be an exemplar in sustainability practices is manifest in its status as the only company in the world of its size and diversity to be 'carbon positive', 'water positive' and 'solid waste recycling positive.' In addition, ITC's businesses have created sustainable livelihoods for more than 5 million people, a majority of whom represent the poorest in rural India.

Key Executives

Organization Structure at HQ

Organization Structure in the field

2. Swot Analysis of your company

ITC is one of India's biggest and best-known private sector companies. In fact it is one of the World's most high profile consumer operations. This SWOT analysis is about ITC. Its businesses and brands are focused almost entirely on the Indian markets, and despite being most well-known for its tobacco brands such as Gold Flake, the business is now diversifying into new FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) brands in a number of market sectors including cigarettes, hotels, paper, agriculture, packaged foods and confectionary, branded apparel, personal care, greetings cards, Information Technology, safety matches, incense sticks and stationery. Examples of its successful new FMCG products include:

• Aashirvaad - India's most popular atta brand with over 50% market share. It is also present in spices and instant mixes.
• Mint-o - Mint-0 Fresh is the largest cough lozenge brand in India.
• Bingo! - a new introduction of finger snacks.
• Kitchens of India - pre-prepared foods designed by ITC's master chefs.
• Sun feast - is ITC's biscuit brand (and the sub-brand is also used on some pasta products).

Strengths

ITC leveraged it traditional businesses to develop new brands for new segments. For example, ITC used its experience of transporting and distributing tobacco products to remote and distant parts of India to the advantage of its FMCG products. ITC master chefs from its hotel chain are often asked to develop new food concepts for its FMCG business.

ITC is a diversified company trading in a number of business sectors including cigarettes, hotels, paper, agriculture, packaged foods and confectionary, branded apparel, personal care, greetings cards, Information Technology, safety matches, incense sticks and stationery.

Weaknesses

The company's original business was traded in tobacco. ITC stands for Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited. It is interesting that a business that is now so involved in branding continues to use its original name, despite the negative connection of tobacco with poor health and premature death.

To fund its cash guzzling FMCG start-up, the company is still dependant upon its tobacco revenues. Cigarettes account for 47 per cent of the company's turnover, and that in itself is responsible for 80% of its profits. So there is an argument that ITC's move into FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) is being subsidised by its tobacco operations. Its Gold Flake tobacco brand is the largest FMCG brand in India - and this single brand alone hold 70% of the tobacco market.

Opportunities

Core brands such as Aashirvaad, Mint-o, Bingo! And Sun Feast (and others) can be developed using strategies of market development, product development and marketing penetration.ITC is moving into new and emerging sectors including Information Technology, supporting business solutions.

e-Choupal is a community of practice that links rural Indian farmers using the Internet. This is an original and well thought of initiative that could be used in other sectors in many other parts of the world. It is also an ambitious project that has a goal of reaching 10 million farmers in 100,000 villages.

ITC leverages e-Choupal in a novel way. The company researched the tastes of consumers in the North, West and East of India of atta (a popular type of wheat flour), then used the network to source and create the raw materials from farmers and then blend them for consumers under purposeful brand names such as Aashirvaad Select in the Northern market, Aashirvaad MP Chakki in the Western market and Aashirvaad in the Eastern market. This concept is tremendously difficult for competitors to emulate.

Chairman Yogi Deveshwar's strategic vision is to turn his Indian conglomerate into the country's premier FMCG business.Per capita consumption of personal care products in India is the lowest in the world offering an opportunity for ITC's soaps, shampoos and fragrances under their Wills brand.

Threats

The obvious threat is from competition, both domestic and international. The laws of economics dictate that if competitors see that there is a solid profit to be made in an emerging consumer society that ultimately new products and services will be made available. Western companies will see India as an exciting opportunity for themselves to find new market segments for their own offerings.ITC's opportunities are likely to be opportunities for other companies as well. Therefore the dynamic of competition will alter in the medium-term. Then ITC will need to decide whether being a diversified conglomerate is the most competitive strategic formation for a secure future.

3. How is your company positioned vis – a – vis the competitors and what are the competitive strategies adopted by it?

ITC is a board-managed professional company, committed to creating enduring value for the shareholder and for the nation. It has a rich organizational culture rooted in its core values of respect for people and belief in empowerment. Its philosophy of all-round value creation is backed by strong corporate governance policies and systems.

ITC’s corporate strategies are:

Create multiple drivers of growth by developing a portfolio of world class businesses that best matches organizational capability with opportunities in domestic and export markets.

Continue to focus on the chosen portfolio of FMCG, Hotels, Paper, Paperboards & Packaging, Agri Business and Information Technology.

·         Benchmark the health of each business comprehensively across the criteria of Market Standing, Profitability and Internal Vitality.

·         Ensure that each of its businesses is world class and internationally competitive.

·         Enhance the competitive power of the portfolio through synergies derived by blending the diverse skills and capabilities residing in ITC are various businesses.

·         Create distributed leadership within the organization by nurturing talented and focused top management teams for each of the businesses.

·         Continuously strengthen and refine Corporate Governance processes and systems to catalyze the entrepreneurial energies of management by striking the golden balance between executive freedom and the need for effective control and accountability.

• Sustain multiple drivers of growth, matching internal capabilities 
  with emerging market opportunities

• Pursue World class competitiveness in all businesses and across 
  the entire value chain 
  Best-in-class in terms of:

·         Internal Vitality

·         Market Standing

·         Profitability

Strategy of Organization and Governance processes geared to

• Manage multiple businesses
• Blend core competencies and leverage ITC umbrella strengths to
• Create new avenues of growth.

Apart from crafting business models that establish direct linkages between businesses and societal goals, ITC is also engaged in implementing various other sustainable development initiatives towards making a meaningful contribution in the economic vicinity of its operating locations. The thrust of these initiatives, christened 'Mission Sunehra Kal', is in three areas: (i) natural resource management, which includes wasteland, watershed and

agriculture development; (ii) sustainable livelihoods, comprising genetic improvement in livestock and economic empowerment of women; and (iii) community development, with focus on primary education and health and sanitation.

ITC is committed to conducting its business operations with passionate respect for the environment. Several prestigious national and international awards (listed elsewhere in this report) testify to ITC's abiding commitment. Such recognition has further reinforced the Company's commitment to consciously synergise and direct the collective endeavour of its employees at all levels across all businesses, functions and locations to continuously improve sustainability practices, to ultimately attain and exceed global standards.

Internationally benchmarked specific consumption of water, dedicated pursuit of the goal of zero discharge and scaling up of rainwater harvesting in several moisture-stressed districts of India have enabled ITC retain its enviable position of a 'water positive' Company for the fourth successive year. The water harvesting potential created so far is over four times the Company's net water consumption.

It is a matter of pride that ITC became 'carbon positive' during the year on the back of several energy conservation measures, usage of carbon neutral fuels and carbon sequestration through large-scale agroforestry programmes. ITC is making rapid strides towards attaining 'zero solid waste' status. Upon this achievement in the near term, ITC would perhaps be the only global enterprise of its size in the world to have achieved these milestones encompassing all three critical facets of environmental sustainability.

In a nation where economic deprivation is widespread and the capacity of a large share of its citizens to participate effectively in economic growth is grossly limited, ITC seeks to contribute in meaningful measure towards social empowerment and genderised development. The ITC e-Choupal and Choupal Saagar infrastructure - a combination of digital, human and physical assets - already serves over 3.5 million farmers and is potentially an efficient delivery channel for rural development. Similarly

4. Your role in the company

Nature of your work

Sales Associates play an important role in the success of their respective companies. Regardless of the type of product they sell, their primary duties are to interest buyers and purchasing agents in their merchandise or services and to address clients’ questions and concerns. Sales associates demonstrate their products and advise clients on how using these products can reduce costs and/or increase revenue. Sales associates can spend much of their time traveling to and visiting with prospective buyers and current clients.

The Sales Associate is a key employee in maintaining good customer service.   She/he is responsible for serving customers and accurately recording all sales, as well as assisting with merchandising responsibilities, such as stocking, pricing and keeping the store neat, clean and organized.   The Sales Associate reports to the Assistant Store Manager or Store Manager, as designated.

Key Responsibilities

·         Provides prompt, courteous customer service

·         Rings up all sales on cash register, properly and accurately handling money, checks and other types of payment received for products sold

·         Performs multi-function operation of fuel console, lottery and money order machines

·         Performs housecleaning duties necessary to maintain store cleanliness and basic upkeep and/or cleaning of all equipment in the store

·         Assists in maintaining proper inventory levels and shift audits

·         Controls merchandise, cash shortages and other selling expenses

·         Performs all duties with minimal supervision; may be required to work   irregular hours, attend job-related meetings and perform other duties as assigned

Process that I follow

Customer Service Executives are accountable for formulating resolution and response in a timely and accurate manner and providing excellent customer services. Their main responsibility is to define a customer service strategy of the organization. This strategy includes using training, technology, developing, and improving employees’ skills, maintaining consistent quality control, standardizing procedures and policies, and establishing expectations of customer service.

Duties and Responsibilities

■Maintaining customers focus on all times and answering to customer’s enquiries using the standard guidelines.

■Taking ownership of complaint and queries and proactively following through to resolution.

■Making ensure that all customers’ queries are well-investigated and resolved, and escalating queries if appropriate to supervisor.

Interface with the other departments

■Assisting management and Team Manger with any assigned special projects and providing backup to the team manager when required.

■Maintaining working cognition of each customer service process for various market segments and communicating issues to team manager.

■Developing and mentoring new staff to satisfy customer service requirements.

■Maintaining professional strong working relationship with external and internal customers, colleagues, and customer service management.

■Supporting decisions made by customer service management and conveying positively to reinforce the team members.

■Identifying and escalating consistent or recurring problems with the systems functionality.

■Assisting in improving and monitoring procedures and processes to ensure the cost-effective and the most efficient service.

■Assisting in preparing and developing the documentation of the organization’s standard policies and procedures towards customer service.

How does my work fit into the overall goal of the company

One thing every business person knows about sales is that there’s never enough. A business doesn’t succeed by standing still. To be successful, you have to drive more sales than ever before. Setting sales performance goals is a crucial step in increasing top-line revenue. But setting arbitrary goals can do more harm than good. Follow these steps to get the most out of your sales staff

·         Usually results in more customers than cash trade.

·         Gain goodwill and loyalty of customers.

·         Increase the sales.

·         Stimulates the profit of the company by the increase in sales

·         Increases sales

·          Reduces bad debts

·          Increases profits

·          Builds customer loyalty

·          Builds confidence of financial industry

·         Increase the customer relationship

5. Performance Management System

An iterative process of goal-setting, communication, observation and evaluation to support, retain and develop exceptional employees for organizational success.

ITC believes the responsibility for career development rests both with the individual and the organization. While the organization provides opportunities for learning and growth, it is the individual's responsibility to ensure he enhances his competencies to shoulder higher responsibilities. Career development therefore is a two-way process. Above all, the key factor determining career growth is meritocracy and performance.

The cornerstone of the performance management system is the Appraisal System. The individual agrees his performance objectives at the beginning of the year with his boss. These objectives naturally flow from the objectives of the unit/business. At the end of the year his performance is assessed against the objectives set. The appraisal attaches as much importance to ''how'' results were achieved as to the results themselves. The rating is determined by the manager's boss and endorsed by his boss. Therefore, two individuals are involved in assessing a manager's performance.

The appraisal process also gives the individual an opportunity to share in a formal manner his own career aspirations and what he needs from the organization to enhance his own development. Based on an assessment of development needs, a development plan is drawn up for each manager.

Remuneration changes are made once every year based on the performance rating of the individual. The entire process is transparent and objective.

ITC's remuneration strategy is anchored in three basic principles: market-led, performance leveraged and the capacity to pay. Remuneration is bench marked with identified comparator organizations and reviewed periodically.

Apart from the monetary component which comprises Consolidated Salary and Supplementary Allowance, managers are provided with quality accommodation, generous loans for asset creation, medical assistance for self and family, leave travel assistance, etc. At middle and senior levels. Managers are provided with company maintained cars and the facility of a club membership for business purposes.

All managers are members of ITC's Retirement Funds, the Pension Scheme being one of the most attractive in the country.

Other benefits include the facility of holiday homes, assistance for further education/self development etc.

The Company believes that as the competitive scenario gets more intense, specialism will increasingly become a source of unique competitive advantage. Certain specialisms are enhanced by extended and in-depth application and 'longevity' in a position. This requires a unique approach to career management of such 'specialists.'

Some of the specialist positions are Company Solicitor, Scientist, Leaf Blender, Product Development Specialist, Process Specialist, Instrumentation Specialist, Agronomist, Commodity Trader, Forex Manager, Corporate Communications Specialist etc the Company does encourage its managers to do so. In fact, the Company sponsors identified managers to pursue a full time MBA programme at the IIMs, ISB and other leading management institutes. Managers are identified on the basis of their performance and potential. Whilst the manager is away pursuing a full time MBA programme, he continues to receive his Consolidated Salary and is reimbursed the cost of his education to the extent of 75% of the expenditure actually incurred, subject to a maximum of Rs.10 lakhs.

6. Use of IT as a productivity enhancer in your organization

IT transformation is a key factor in achieving high performance for retailers. Streamline information technology to enhance overall performance.

Today's retailers need to transform their IT capabilities for a number of reasons. These include:

•To aggregate and analyze customer data to enhance differentiation.

•To increase a company's ability to respond to a rapidly changing marketplace through enhanced flexibility and speed.

•To operate effectively, retailers need to have one system working across stores (sometimes across national borders) to ensure the most effective use of stock and to support optimized business processes.

Transaction processing

As the hype around technology decreases, retailers are seeing clearly that technology's role is one of an enabler, speeding up of processes and delivering cost savings. The retail industry faces specific IT management challenges:

•Transparency and Tracking: Retailers need greater transparency between systems and better tracking to integrate systems from manufacturer through to consumer to obtain customer and sales information.

Decision making

•Customer Data: Information overload is a challenge for retailers because they need to collect and sift through data to convert it into useful information in a customer-centric industry.

•Global Data Synchronization: Enabled by radio frequency identification/electronic product coding, the entire supply chain is becoming more intelligent. This creates what Accenture calls Silent Commerce.

Benefits for retailers include enabling the use of real-time data to monitor inventory levels. Radio frequency identification tagging also positions the company to better safeguard its shipments by enabling the tracking of products from manufacturer through the supply chain.

Performance tracking

Collaborates with companies to meet the need for positive IT management. The goal is to enhance business processes and keep up to date with innovation to become a high-performance business.

The innovation in Information Technologies (IT) and their uses in the retail supply chain increase the efficiency of the whole system itself. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Point of Sales (POS), and various Data Mining (DM) technologies enable retailers to radically change the way they do business within the retail supply chain, and achieve increased supply chain efficiency in terms of labour cost reduction, inventory accuracy improvement, lead time reduction, and order fill rate increment.

7. Any lacuna or area for improvement you have observed at your work place / organization and your suggestions for improving it.

Whatever category your retail business is in, the following tactics will help you build, track and keep up on the buzz about your brand without the need to invest large amounts of money. These ideas compliment almost any brand at any budget.

1. Social networking – You probably already have a Facebook and Twitter page that may or may not be yielding results for you. To help these pages along and to build up your social networking reputation or refute complaints, you should be leveraging these pages further.

What you can do now – Task a junior member of your team to be your "social outreach ambassador." This role is focused totally on trolling Facebook, Twitter and blogs to "invite," "reply" and "request" connections with current and potential customers and groups. By spending 20 or so hours a week on this effort you will slowly help along your Facebook and Twitter following, refute untrue online blog statements and reply to customers who have questions. This is a hard position to measure effectiveness on, so it could be hard to justify in your budget. But you have to consider this proactive marketing. The opportunity cost saved is not having uncontrolled rumors online. Many PR firms are starting to offer this service, but they don’t really get it and won’t be able to react as quickly as someone in your company culture who understands your brand.

Start with an intern and scale from there.

2. Customer service – In today’s economy no single thing matters as much for your sales and loyalty as building a great customer service brand. This is an area of marketing often overlooked or muddled with expensive and hard-to-use processes. If you are even aware of your customer service problem it is likely you first came across it the way most consumers find you: You found a review about your company online, via a search engine, and it was probably not flattering.

Online reviews are here to stay and many current and potential customers use them to help guide their online research in deciding where to buy. You can leverage the world of online reviews in your favor and often have more effect on purchase intent than the best TV commercial.

Whether you have a large customer service department, no customer service department, already have a good customer service reputation or need to build one, today many new online customer service tools exist that are often free or low cost.

What you can do now - Start asking your customers to review you on business sites like Angieslist.com and customer service sites like MeasuredUp.com. By confidently asking customers for business and customer service reviews, you will in no time have dozens of complimentary reviews of your company online. These will negate most bad reviews, increase your positioning on search engines and help interested, potential customers find and trust you when researching online. The goal here is not to have only good reviews as even the best companies have some bad reviews about them online. The goal is to have a balance and to demonstrate through association that your brand is focused on improving.

3. Online comments – The Internet is talking about you whether you like it or not. On thousands of sites, content that mentions you or a competitor is constantly being added. You need to join this conversation, even if you can’t control it.

What you can do now - Take that intern who is working on Facebook, Twitter and blogs and have him also spend five hours a week searching for reviews about your company or articles about something that is relevant to your business. When there is a comment field, have the intern write some intelligent content in response. State that they are an employee of the company and include a URL to your site. Do not try and pretend to be consumer as this will likely be found out and create further uncomplimentary content. This effort will help rebut negative views, show your company cares about its reputation and will help drive traffic to your company Web site. If you come across compliments, add on a quick "Thank You" comment, saying that you care about your reputation and appreciate the support of customers.

4. PR - You have more to say about your business than you realize. Regular press releases about important company events, news or upgrades are often overlooked. Generate interest from journalists by creating content that will interest them.

What you can do now – You know your business and the kinds of things the press wants to cover. Often, the press does not have the resources to generate data for a story. Create a poll on your Web site based on a topic of interest and then pitch the results to your press contacts. This will often lead to an exclusive or inclusion in a larger story about the topic.

If you have good contacts you also can pre-pitch an idea to them to gauge interest and then create the poll customized to their needs. Polls like these help raise your company’s credibility build your reputation and keep your brand in front of customers.

With these easy and inexpensive marketing tips, you can quickly augment your existing marketing efforts and start to raise your company's social media, customer service, online and PR profile while helping increase sales and build online reputation.

8. Learning experience

Personal

The thought of a career in sales can be a very daunting prospect, especially if you have no previous experience. I will try and talk you through some of my own personal experiences.

Sales, is all about your personality. The difference between a great sales person and a poor sales person generally all comes down to the nature of the individual involved.

If you are bright out going and able to communicate with different people on different levels then you may well find that sales is for you. There is no template for the perfect sales person and there is no true technique that will work for everyone is all comes down to you.

One of the biggest factors that I think comes into play with sales people is money. You think money when you are selling. The money factor is often the catalyst that makes sales people perform. It’s almost like waving the carrot for the donkey.

Sales jobs are very often commission based so the recruitment process is usually very relaxed. In most non-sales jobs employers can pick and chose whom they want to employ.

Sales is different, if you don’t perform you don’t get paid, it really is that simple. There are a few exceptions where you will be offered a salary but generally a sales persons wage is directly reflected by their performance. This could be a big factor when deciding if you want to take a chance with a career in sales.

I was lucky enough to land a placement that included a salary plus bonus. This acted like a safety net. If I had a bad month I still had my basic wage to fall back on.

The commission only package does have other implications, for example, saying to your bank manager you are only paid on a commission only basis may not go down to well when your are applying for a mortgage. These are just a few considerations you should take into account when deciding if sales is for you.

Most companies that sell either products or services have a team of sales reps that are there to promote and sell their products to the public or businesses.

The sales teams are very often the public face of the company and are in effect representing the company’s brand. Conduct is very important in this role. A good sales rep will always try and show the company in good light and be polite and courteous at all times.

Professional

Training

Most companies offer training to any new starts within the company. Try and take in as much of this as possible. They will offer you tips and tricks to help you out when you are out selling. They will also try and make you a fully aware of the products or service they offer. Training is very often ongoing and you will be brought back in for refresher courses once in a while. At the time they seam pointless but in the long term they do help.

·         Good sales all comes down to the following

·         Well presented to your customers

·         Good overall product knowledge

·         Confident

·         Well spoken

·         Good listening skills

All these factors play a part in making you good sales rep there is no magic formula that will make you perform in sales it is all just a learning process. What works for one person won’t work for another. It all comes down to fine-tuning your own personal skills.

1. Sales allow you to acquire cash much more quickly than a salaried job, and you have much greater control over your income than you would with a salary or hourly wage.

2. Sales require you learn the some of the most important skills in business: goal setting, persistence, determination, accountability, long term perspective, and a high tolerance for rejection and frustration.

3. Success in sales gives you real flexibility in your work life, allowing you to finally be free of an office and a time clock. I know that’s one of the most cliché statements you’ll ever hear, but it also happens to be true - and thank goodness.

Bibliography

ITC website