Government College Relations Council

Small business growth can be achieved through strategic diversification. Why are many businesses not fully leveraging the advantages of diversification? Primarily because the business owners don’t understand the benefits. Increasing profitability and business growth are the two drivers for diversification.

The advantages of diversification can include:

• Economies of scale: for example, in purchasing, in producing, in supplying;
• Minimizing sales peaks and valleys: for example, while one product’s seasonality results in slow sales; the other product’s seasonality results in high sales;
• Production capacity utilization: for example, if your production facility is under-utilized, then adding new products through a diversified strategy can help you fill production capacity;
• Overall efficiency improvement can be expected: through synergy efforts;
• Reduction of costs: by sharing resource costs amongst the diversified products, services or markets;
• Improved labor utilization: by being able to deploy your human resources in a more efficient work flow cycle;
• Increased opportunities and sales;
• Competitive advantage: by being able to bundle products or services together that provides unique value and unique differentiation.

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Telemarketing services comprise a wide variety of call center offerings including telesales, b2b telemarketing, lead generation and virtual assistant services. The versatility in the offerings means that telemarketing companies have managed to make themselves as indispensable to the business world as delivery companies and freight forwarding providers. Without telemarketing services many of the b2b telemarketing activities that we now take for granted would cease to exist and businesses would have to find other ways of getting their marketing mandates fulfilled. However, telesales agencies are not likely to be going out-of-business anytime soon.

Telesales are not just the kind of telemarketing services that were offered when the industry first came into being. Today’s telemarketing is more of a two-way conversation with clients. Instead of the agent simply talking to the client and trying to sell them a product or services, agents are now tasked with trying to find out as much as they can about the customer. As not all agents are equipped to charm the clients that are on their call lists, professional writers put together a script that all agents must follow. Each script is written specifically for the business in question with all of their needs in mind. The script is a reflection of what the business wants to accomplish with their telemarketing campaign.

One of the telemarketing services that is most in demand recently is lead generation. The newest offering on the telemarketing services platter is one of those highly useful tools that help businesses tailor their products and services to better meet the needs and wants of their target audience. Lead generation is a process whereby the telesales agents find out as much as they can about the target market by conducting informal market research surveys and engaging the customers in conversation. The opinions expressed are then compiled and turned into data that businesses can use to their advantage.

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In today’s inconsistent economy, everyone is trying to figure out how to best and most effectively spend their advertising and marketing dollars to get the most bang for their buck. Savvy business owners know that they should aim to effectively expose their business products or services to as many potential customers as they can, while spending the least amount of money possible. They also know that exhibiting at a trade show or business expo is a solid part of the perfect marketing plan and an excellent way to deliver their company’s message to a mass group of people. The quality exposure you receive from the attendance of a built in demographic that is tailored specifically to your product or service will allow you to make the most of your marketing efforts and gain customers for your business.

Tried and true, trade shows and business expos are the perfect way to get your name out there, make new business acquaintances, get new leads and ultimately boost sales. So, now that you have the ingenious marketing plan of exhibiting at a trade show or business expo, how do you make sure the event is a success and that your company’s product or service stands out from the hundreds of other businesses at the exposition?

The first thing you have to do is plain and simple: you have to get folks to come visit your booth at the event. As soon as you secure your booth space at the expo, you should start to immediately focus on getting the word out. The first plan of action is to post signs in your place of business to let your existing customers know that you will be at the expo. This is a good time to start thinking about a theme for your event because all of your signs, banners and swag (give-a-ways!) should have a consistent theme and should ‘mesh’ together to combine a solid and powerful marketing statement for your business.

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