Nicholas Watkis

Nicholas Watkis set up Contract Marketing Service in 1981, providing professional interim marketing management for a wide variety of businesses. Over 3 years practical experience in organizations, large and small, national and international, led to the development of Business Performance Maximized specialist in marketing performance measurement.

Selling or Buying – which is it?

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Posted on 2012-04-30

The action of selling is the only business activity that brings money into a business. Thus the effective management of the selling process is fundamental to ensuring that costs, investment and use of assets are minimized, while the level of profitable income is maximised.

The art of successful selling lies in differentiating at an early stage, between those who are there to buy, those who would buy if they recognised that they had a problem that could be resolved to their advantage, and those who while they show interest and curiosity, are simply not in the market to buy at that time.

When asked, many people complain that they do not like to be “sold to”, and when they feel that sales people are “selling” to them, they prefer to walk away. Aggressive selling may have short term positive results, but will often prevent repeat sales, because its manner may alienate the customer. The process of selling does not come without costs, and like every other...

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If sales aren’t where they should be, start asking why.

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Posted on 2012-03-21

All businesses at sometime or other are subject to variations in their volume of sales and level of income. Depending on the type of business undertaken, most commercial organisations would recognize that there are trading or sales cycles during the course of their trading year. In many consumer businesses, the run up to Christmas is a major trading period of high sales and income. However, January tends to be a slacker trading month, usually enlivened by “sales” which increase volume, but with discounted prices that reduce the level of potential income.

Selling is the foundation of business. But some people have a wrong attitude about the process or profession of “selling”. There are those who consider that, to be a salesman,(male or female), is demeaning, that the process of “selling” makes people buy things they don’t want. But commerce and economic well-being depend on selling. When Governments want to grow the economy, they often forget that in order to generate...

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“Marketing” is about management”

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Posted on 2012-02-22

In December 2011, the Chartered Institute of Marketing put the cat amongst the pigeons of the marketing press when it published a discussion document “Marketing and Sales Fusion”.

The document proposed that the function of marketing should be merged into the sales function if it was to have a future. Unfortunately, the document ignored the CIM’s own definition of marketing, which it defines as “the management process that anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably”, and which therefore includes the process of selling. Does this proposal matter? In reality, no, because this has become an academic argument which has little purpose and achieves no practical result. However, the importance of , “the management process that anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably”, whatever it is called by academics, is fundamental to the existence of any business no matter how large or small.

Whatever the size of any business enterprise, someone will be...

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Customer strategy: Contact with the enemy makes all plans obsolete!

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Posted on 2011-11-24

Defining business mission statements, strategies and objectives, is a relatively easy if at times laborious process undertaken by those in charge of getting and maintaining business income. Every year, countless books and training courses are devoted to the subject of business strategy and planning, and the training industry gains a lot of business in supplying programs to meet the needs of businesses and executives who want to understand and improve their planning process.
Unfortunately all the planning in the world does not guarantee the desired results. Carl Von Clausewitz said that in war, contact with the enemy makes all plans obsolete. Business is not war, but there is an element of truth that in the world of commerce, changing factors can soon make business plans obsolescent.

As a manager responsible for getting and maintaining business income, setting income objectives to support the overall business plan is relatively easy. However, achieving those income...

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Ignorance is no excuse

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Posted on 2011-09-27

In the “phone hacking scandal”, News International managers appear to have assumed that the gaoling of Goodman and Mulcaire, had ended any illegal practices amongst their staff. But did those managers make efforts to confirm that illegal practices had not only ceased but did not reappear, or did they simply assume the answer they wanted? Do you know how the law relates and affects your business practices? Do your employees know and understand how the law relates and affects their activities in getting and retaining business? How do you know?
There is so much law involved in all commercial transactions, that it has become a veritable minefield for the unwary manager responsible for getting and maintaining business. Although buyers and sellers should be free to engage in business as they please, the law is there to make a reliable framework in which business may be transacted for their mutual benefit. Many managers would consider that they know how the law affects their...

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It is easier to lose business than to get it

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Posted on 2011-08-15

Businesses are not philanthropic institutions: they exist to make money in the form of profit. To make money businesses have to anticipate and satisfy customer’s demands, so that customers provide the necessary income to the business in return for the goods or services that they require. Identifying enough potential customers who have the requirement for the goods and services on offer, is the primary problem for every business. Having identified the potential customers, the next difficulty is to convert them into customers that pay for their goods and services.
It often costs businesses more than they realize in order to gain a new customer – and considerably more than it does to retain them, so it is surprising how businesses can often take a casual attitude to their customer relations and to retaining customers for their repeat business. Gaining and retaining customers is a privilege not a right. Customers don’t have to give their business and they are not obliged to...

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How well do you understand your business?

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Posted on 2011-07-15

What do you know about your business? More importantly, what do you know about getting and retaining the business that produces the income for your company? The initial answers will often be “no one knows our business better that we do “– but is that a satisfactory answer? How do you know? Does your knowledge of your customers and your own business organization and methods bear close examination?
For those responsible for maintaining and developing the financial income of any business, the efficiency of getting and maintaining business and a full understanding of the process is all important. So, how should this be attained?

Research is the obvious process for obtaining information to establish a clear understanding of the business environment and current customers. But the validity of the knowledge obtained will be dependent on the nature of the questions asked, of whom they are asked, and who asked the questions.
Managers need to be clear about what they know,...

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Managers have to manage; they don’t need to be creative.

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Posted on 2011-06-13

Every commercial business started as an idea for the purpose of making money. Successful entrepreneurs are good at identifying problems of society and individuals; seeing opportunities to make money by finding solutions which induce customers to buy, in order to relieve their discomfort.
Seeing and recognising an opportunity may be the spark of an idea that creates a business, but in order to start, every business needs some initial capital. Income is not produced without the investment of labour or money, and usually requires both. Getting business costs money, and maintaining that business also costs money – you don’t get something for nothing.

Businesses exist to make money, which is produced as a result of satisfying customer demand. Satisfying customer demand requires knowledge of the customer and their problems, the production of a solution to those problems and the ability to convey that solution to the customer so that they are willing to accept and pay for it...

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To Lead or Manage, - that is the question.?

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Posted on 2011-05-16

Government organizations local and national spend a lot of money on leadership training, aping so it seems what is done in business. But it is clear from repeated reports from the National Audit Office, that both at national and government level money is frequently wasted through bad organization and decision making. This suggests that for all the money spent on leadership training, the problem of waste and poor decision making lies in poor management. Leadership and management are not the same, and training in leadership will not produce good managers or management practise.
In the continuing search for some “holy grail” for business success, there has emerged what may be described as the cult of business leadership, which has developed into an industry of leadership training and coaching.

A report on the training market by Keynote, published last year estimates that the amount spent on off-the-job training by UK private and public sector employers was £19.39bn in...

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“If you are not in business for profit or fun why are you here?”

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Posted on 2011-04-07

“Up the Organization” written in 1970 by Robert Townshend the then chairman of Avis Rental cars, was a worldwide best seller. Townshend analysed and commented on the structure and organization of businesses and its operation in a humorous and anarchic manner, but also showed how he had organized and managed Avis in ways that appeared radically different from the accepted business norm.
Re reading the book shows how much in business is the same, despite computerization,
e-mail and the internet, and much of his observations and maxims are still valid. Why? Because business is run by and for people, and people do not change in their motivations, habits, prejudices ambitions and fears.

The structure and organization of most businesses probably may not have changed much in more than a century. The organizations of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) are probably the most efficient, because they have to be flexible to adapt to circumstance and they have no “slack...

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