Nauvou provides partner systems for manufacturers.

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This morning I received an email from Today In Manufacturing.  The email told of Toyota recalling 7.43 million vehicles.  This information was interesting, but not of immediate value to me.  We don’t count Toyota among our customers, and I don’t own a Toyota, so it was simply interesting.  This information just cluttered up my memory.  We sell to manufacturers so much of the information in this journal is useful to me, but not everything.  I know that Toyota dealers have a partner portal to make sure that the dealers know well in advance of the general public. 

Do you have a “insider” communication channel?  I hope your partner communications channel is better than email!  Really, I hope you are using Nauvou Partner Portal. However, I’ll talk about how to leverage any partner portal using social media.

Magazines and Journals and web sites and television have made a huge business of distributing the information that you want delivered to prospects.  Consider the millions or thousands that you now spend simply to get the word out about your products.  It’s important, attracting new customers, making sure that the world knows what your company is doing.

The other side of that coin is holding those customers who you have already found.  Caring for their needs and making sure that they stick with you.  Today, I’m going to talk a little about how you might use twitter in conjunction with Nauvou Partner Portal.

Most of us are pretty busy doing our job.  If I sit at the manufacturer, I’m focused on building the best product, keeping up with my suppliers, promoting my product to my partners.  In the course of doing the job of a manufacturer, I have some very specialized knowledge.  Some things like:

1. We are placing a new full-page ad in MBT magazine, to run 3 months from now

2. Due to regulations, we can no longer ship propane tanks with our product

3. We are changing all of our lighting to LED from OceanLED.

4. We just stopped production of our least-expensive model.

Each of these items seems random, but your partners care.  None may be newsworthy, in that the trade journals my not care.  Your business partners consider this KIND of information VERY important.

1. Your partners (dealers, distributors) want to make sure that they have a copy of the MBT magazine for their customers to see.  Perhaps you will receive a request for an early copy of the material.  Everyone likes to be in the know.

2. Your partners may need to put in one of those lines of refillable propane tank vendors to take up the slack.  Perhaps they can even make additional revenue, and have another reason for customers to visit regularly.

3. Wow, reduced power, brighter illumination, who knows what other new selling points this might bring.  It’s good to know what is coming.  Perhaps your competitor has already gone to LED, and your partners need to know that you are also on track.

4. What is replacing the cancelled model?  Conceivably this is the opportunity to push someone who is on the fence to purchasing since next year, they will have to buy the more expensive model.  Perhaps your partners will really speak out and you will reconsider.  There is lots of value in hearing from your partners early, before your are totally committed.

Hopefully, you already had the desire and are communicating with your partners.  When you add twitter, you have your own personal news network.  Each of these subjects can be effectively tweeted; your partners can be linked into your business processes much easier than you would have ever thought.  

1. New model year Ad MBT, July 1 edition. http://link_to_artwork

2. No more propane shipped with units, starting August. http://link_to_our_article.

3. Change to all LED next year. http://link_to_our_internal_article.

4. Model XYZ cut from line next year. http://link_to_our_article.

I bet your tweets will be better than these illustrations!

You can see that twitter announcements are short.  It’s important to convey enough information that your partners can decide if they NEED to read the full article.  Don’t waste their time on long articles that don’t apply to them.  One other point to consider, your service manager might tweet as well. All of your partner service managers have to keep up someway.  

Our product Nauvou Partner Portal is a cloud based service, which hosts your articles.  We provide security so that ONLY your partners can access the articles.  Your links will look something like.  ”http://partners.your_company_name.com” so instead of “www.” your partners will use partner.  Using Nauvou Partner Portal, gives your partners a place to access private information only intended for them.

Eugene

Nauvou provides partner systems for manufacturers.

Visit our web site

www.nauvou.com

Chat on the phone

501-223-2100

Contact by email

ejones@nauvou.com

Times have changed. Sales people of my generation were taught that if you contact 10 prospects per day, you would end up with enough commission to live comfortably.  Today instead of 10, it’s 200.  Wow! How do you do that?  You’ve got to be some kind of telephone person to make 200 calls in a day.  Well, the easier answer is technology.  You must reach out to your customers and see who raises their head above the noise.  Send your prospects a message, and email, a new release, do something.  Then use the telephone, mainly to respond to those who answer.  Refine your message and try again, it’s not quantity of leads. It’s the quality that matters speak directly with prospects who have a genuine need.  You control the message, formulate your message such that those prospects who really need your product will feel compelled to speak up.

If you are selling work trucks, it might not the optimum use of your one on one personal time to talk with someone who does not own or run a business.  Yahoo’s email addresses might not be your best prospects.   Obviously, you don’t want to ignore these people. Your on-line systems should provide the information that these early stage prospects need.  Everyone does their research on the web, try not to spend your one-on-one time with these researchers.

Lets talk a bit about your existing customers!

All the hype these days is about blogs, it seems that everyone has a blog, or maybe 5.  You can do lots better, easier, more targeted, and profitable than a blog.  Consider the well-known advantages of selling more to your existing customers.  Focus your attention on providing the best possible service to your current customers, and they will bring in the business.  Using comments and existing customer information gleaned from your automated partner portal, your prospecting web system can be more effective.

Every day, your customers, dealers, distributors place orders.  Do they automatically get the finest, latest, prettiest information about your products?   Think about the value of having your best message from your Product Manager right in front of the buyer’s eyes!  What about a message from your Service Manager, or Product Quality Manager, or Sales Manager?

These people, your best people, have things to say to your partners.  Give them a platform to speak daily to your customers.  Let’s say that some of your folks just don’t do the written word well.  I have hunted down an amazing tool to help make our words easier to read and to conform to written English guidelines.  I use “White Smoke,”  no affiliation, no connection, except, I purchased their product.  It really helps me come closer to proper English.  White Smoke is miles ahead of Microsoft Office spell and grammar checker.  Fragments, run-ones, punctuation, wrong words, all kinds of stuff is found and suggestions are provided by this product.  While my words may still not be perfect, they are now reasonably acceptable.  I don’t really like White Smoke. The user interface is not great. I have to cut and paste my text from open office into White Smoke, BUT I do write better.  White Smoke was well worth the $200 or so that I paid, looks like it’s even cheaper now.  Give it a try, and you will see that even a poor writer manages to make themselves understood.

I really believe that printed words (or should that be displayed words?) and pictures are the most powerful medium to convey your message.  This is especially true with your existing customers.  Words convey more information than speaking,  there is no rambling, no side topics. You simply get a well-thought-out solution.  Often your customers can resolve their own issues and be happier and more self-sufficient than speaking with a customer support person.

Of course with Nauvou Partner Portal, words are not the only choice. You can just skip the words and make a little youtube videos to embed in your Partner Web Site.  Sorry, no tool to make me better looking, but I guess that’s for another month.