VIDEO
to speak about the modern sales cycle good morning good morning good morning junior magdy thank you for joining us and uh so a very rich topic um where do you want to start yeah i think i’ll have to agree first with what my majesty said is that the internet had been like changing our behavior as users and also on the other hand for businesses that have been becoming like challenging to stay up to date with how the internet works and how for their businesses to move further especially they had been in business for a long period of time so we have a big industry which is like the digital transformation which is about helping businesses that have been around for a long period of time of how they be able to kind of ride the digital age so we will have to agree when it comes to attracting clients which what we call it like generating leads and qualifying leads and closing businesses because businesses are based on transactions they want to get clients and they want to get transactions done so for them they see that lots of these transactions which used to happen like in store like people walking in or happening offline now have moved online so the challenge for business owners especially small business owners how do i follow that trend how do i change my business and my approach to be able to capture that business from online so i want to stay with the consumers sorry um and gm magna i want to say with the consumers because most of our viewers now are our consumers they’re not the business owners uh that’s the the 80 20 rule the 2080 rule so um i assume and you correct me if i’m wrong that most of those who uh search online and purchase online are youth and and sometimes children now but but not not the elderly not the those in their 60s 70s or 50 and you tell me and and thus how is this affecting the the market in general and let’s speak about egypt yeah i think like if we think about like the the age group who move in online we can say that like the what they call the y generation or like those who are like the 35 right now like starting 35 37 right now they are starting to have lots of their transactions happening online so maybe like those are older or less likely to to make a purchase decision online and they will have like the other ways in which they like to investigate different sales decisions prior to making a transaction and we might prefer to schedule sometimes to go for a store and and then like compare what we have seen online with what’s possible online especially if they’re purchasing services like that’s physical so this is still like a large percentage of consumers especially in countries like egypt in which that online is not becoming as big as it is in other markets to actually get an idea of what’s offered there how much is it and then they go to trust to the stores to make the purchase decision make the transaction through a physical store but can’t we say that the idea that we go shopping and we walk in the street to buy our stuff has a big change then before because i i do see a lot of my friends and myself think that it’s much easier to just purchase what we we do want online so to what extent that is affecting the idea that we go for shopping or to go to the stores even for uh food shopping uh mr next yeah i think like if we look at other markets and also we’d understand what’s happening in egypt is also to some extent it’s going to be following what happened in other markets like some of the the quick decisions like when it comes to grocery shopping right now for example it’s uh you just as you are surfing the net you just uh uh advertisement or the product popping up so it’s more attractive soon yeah and you usually see offers and better prices than you like exactly and if we talk about things like frequent purchases like grocery shopping is basically you have solutions right now that’s more like subscription based in which that you have you have a box and then you have things like gradually being developed to that box and then you have the user has a dashboard in which that they can fail the exactly they want so it’s more about you know like what is the user quite like is looking to purchase so if it’s a like frequent items or it’s like uh something that you purchase in a in a year like like uh clothes etc or is it like more like something they’re gonna push in five years so the behavior is gonna differ according to what exactly they are purchasing but the thing the challenge also for business owners is gonna come into that the need to get into the mind of these consumers and understand how they are thinking and what the process and how but then i would shift part of my process online to match like the behavior of consumers etc how dangerous is it for children to get into this cycle they are already and and sometimes they buy stuff or they order stuff that their parents are not even aware of or haven’t taken the permission for so how good or bad is it that children are getting into this um uh cycle and and and how can we regulate uh or should the cycle be regulated yeah i think i think like 80 percent of that would actually go into like the parental control in terms of like the parent managing like their children’s access to technology and to what extent do they use technology and what they’re allowed to use it for and not i think like a precious decision they usually require a credit card or transaction so there are different ways in which that this could be moderated in terms of we do not allow like in the devices and the hardware they are using like the credit card is not inserted there so they cannot finish transactions there will be always like different solutions in which that they can basically tab into an existing account etc like if it comes to subscriptions for example so if you’re sharing like a store subscription they can order different applications so i think the easiest way to look at it because also from the other hand like those who are doing marketing they have to be responsible in terms of what they kind of promote directly to those who are under age but by the end of the day it’s gonna be the parent decision responsibility to moderate access to different like platforms in which the purchase decisions are happening um mr magdy what are the main elements here uh that we do need to put together for a successful marketing and sales plans for the current year 2020 as we are starting in new year’s what are the new ideas the new challenges the new uh things that we we need to reach here in order to change or to improve in the marketing strategies yeah i think like if i look at everything that we discussed in terms of how consumers are thinking about the sales and how they are moving online right now like my biggest challenge as a business owner as an entrepreneur is to look at the opportunities in which they can adjust my operation to kind of to be able to attract some of that business what are the tips here that you do give for your um as you are giving lectures or you are giving courses here for the young entrepreneurs and for the young business owners who are doing marketing uh marketing and sites online what are the tips here that you are gonna give this year yeah i think like like it’s not it’s not actually like if we think about like how the internet is changing things i think there is a there is a very interesting analogy which actually is based on einstein and he was like having the finals exam and like his teaching assistant figured out that he’s actually like sending the same test as last year and then he kind of brought that to the attention of einstein and showing like like you’re actually giving them the same exam as last year like so he said that the the questions but the answers did so i think it also applies to business owners in terms of yeah in terms of you know like it’s a step stella in order for you to make a successful sale it is like it’s the same like psychology but there is a different process yes so the thing is about like hammering on the skill sets and hammering on the basic skills for people who are doing the marketing and the sales while also moderate like look thinking about the process differently looking at how does it like for example if we think about it what usually happens is that we think about it in terms of five stages we need to figure out who are the users so the first step is to understand what are the perfect profile for our users so if i have like three personas for the users who buy from me or buy my offering who would they who would they be like how old are they where do they live how much they are willing to spend how frequently do they make this purchase so i need to understand a lot of details like who these customers are and then i need to know like where do they go so do you usually spend a lot of time on youtube do they kind of go to educational websites do they do a lot of business networking on linkedin so i need to figure out what sites or like where do i find them so figuring out the child channels through which i can reach out to them and then i know that what are their pains because i know who they are and and like where they are but then i can actually like design my message in terms of talking about like um solving some of their problems or offering them more efficiency according to their needs so but then i i knew who they are i found the channels and then i sent them a like a very direct message for them to take an action and then once they take a specific action i have to make it easy for them to initiate this conversation and once the initiate this conversation i have to have like a well-designed sales process and people who are like qualified and also like like operating with a lot of ethics and sensitivities in order for them to be able to kind of close the sales cycle yeah if we think about it online if we if we’re talking about sales specifically i mean if if users go online and then they they do the whole purchase decision online by then there is no sales to be done so the sales profession is is done but that’s not the case i think in a lot of industries like people are still the they see the product they might actually add it to the shopping carts but by then there are different other elements that they need to get answered in order for them to take the precious decision and this is a transition in which that you need a sales professional who really knows exactly what they are doing and they have like systems in place and they are well trained and they know how to handle that in order for them to close the sale indeed so so the sales profession is is very much alive but you’re saying um engineer mcd that the job description has changed and that research and development perhaps r d is now the main task of the of uh and keeping up to date with technology is the main task of the of the sales uh department yeah i think i i fully agree with that if we’re looking at hiring sales professionals in today’s world i mean if we’re looking at if we have an online business or an e-commerce store or like we’re selling business services and we’re looking at sales professionals how do we kind of assess whether these are it’s probably the most important job probably in today’s world i mean in the business cycle yeah like definitely closing sales is very important i think there is a very important job to be done in terms of building the strategy in terms of how do i get the right like clientele get the right kind of personas but by then definitely you have to look at the sales professionals and you have to assess like there are like four different areas department that will tell you who are you targeting first of all i mean it’s it’s part of the strategy they are already part of the strategy aren’t they because if you don’t have a client if you don’t have an art targeted audience then you don’t have a business all together so so so i i don’t want to be um um you know i’m just asking your opinion i mean are we getting into a world where the sales department is basically the most important in the cycle well i i think like like that the example that i have given in terms of if we’re moving towards an automated sales cycle or automated like marketing and sales cycle we see that sales is not even as much as it used to be because if we’re looking at offline stores so offline stores like sales is the most important thing because you have walk-in traffic these people are they are walking in the streets at like a lot hard like street for example and then they go into the store so there’s a lot of success is going to depend on the personality and the talent of the sales person but like i think in in the modern world we need actually to get the right traffic so there is a lot of weight that goes into defining where do we find the customers who they are and how do we target them so there’s a lot of weight that go that goes into kind of getting the decline but i need to get the advice of the sales department to to do that yeah i think what also happens is it becomes a it becomes a matter of analytics and automation so because because these are like digital platforms so let’s think about it as an email list if if the way that i generate business online is that i get people to download a pdf and then i get their email and by then i have an analytic tool to tell me like them the names or the the regions or which parts and car these people are coming from and by then i have a lot of data in which that i’m accessing through analytics tool that’s not necessarily coming out of like the direct sales professionals that’s that doesn’t mean that like sales are not needed or they are not important but by then it becomes even more important for them to invest on like different capabilities and skills this makes it easier for them to close the sales cycle some of these things that we look at is like they have like four different parts like some of them are iq so definitely like sales people have to be really intelligent in terms of and also we think about aq which is like acquired intelligence in terms of for them their ability to learn update themselves that’s it’s highly important and also like tq which is like technology intelligence we have to be like up to date with with technology and you have to be trained on technology and one of the things that’s usually sad when it comes to the sales professional as we’re talking about the level of importance is like there are two types of sales people in the future those who like tell the machines what to do or tell the technology what to do and there are those who get told what to do by the machines yeah so and the different then most likely gonna be the fourth part which is emotional intelligence is emotional intelligence is by the time that i i got all these flow from online and i have these profiles and i’m sending a particular message to a particular individual to what extent do i understand where they come from and i understand how to like interact with them in terms of do i give them a phone call do i send them a message like do i wait so there’s a lot of decision that has to do with emotional intelligence in terms of motivating my own feelings and also and my own emotions and also understanding how this is being perceived so by then if i’m a sales professional or like if i want to become a sales professional i would look at like investing at least like four different quadrants and also becoming really like iq this is something most likely i’m born with so i could be like like even if we say that those who are kind of in a lower like high q but have like have higher eq yeah and tcu they could actually be very good engineers
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