The World Ain't Sunshines and Rainbows

Iseng-iseng cari motivasi di google, akhirnya saya jatuh pada pilihan kata itu. Again, youtube inspired me with its motivational video. Dan saat ini, sebetulnya banyak sekali sumber-sumber yang dapat menginspirasi kita bahkan di hari terburuk yang kita punya. Langsung saja saya kutip kata-katanya Rocky Balboa dalam film Rocky yang saya liat di youtube.

"Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain't sunshine and rainbows. 

It's a very mean and nasty place, and i dont't care how tough you are,
It will beat you to your knees and keep you there if you let it. 

You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain't about how hard you hit.
It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward".

Listened to the words above, i remember one of my friends. He had got beaten by life for many times. There were so many problems came into his life. I imagined, if i were him i might not be able to handle the problems. He is a tough guy, but again, it's not how tough you are. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

I Wrote The Same, But Different Words

Tulisan ini terinspirasi oleh penjaga penitipan sepatu di masjid RS Fatmawati, Jaksel. Tepatnya masjid yang berada di depan gedung Teratai. Sore kemarin saya, istri, anak-anak dan kedua orang tua saya mengunjungi seorang teman yang sedang sakit di sana. Kami tiba di sana jam 1647 WIB dan terlihat pengunjung sudah ramai menunggu pintu rumah sakit terbuka untuk para pengunjung. Rumah sakit ini sedang berbenah dan salah satu sisi pembenahannya adalah penertiban jam kunjungan.

It was 1700 WIB when the doors were opened finally. My wife and children waited for us in the lobby. I and my parents went upstairs to meet my neighbour who is sick. I asked my parents where the room was but they have no info about that. We were in 5th floor when i decided to ask a nurse about the room. "Sus, boleh tanya ruangan di mana pasien berada?", i asked.

Jangan Lupakan Pelanggan Anda

 Adalah bu Rogayah, pelanggan kami yang berprofesi sebagai guru TK di wilayah Depok yang merupakan pelanggan setia kami. Awalnya saya dan bu Rogayah tidak saling kenal tentunya. Suatu hari minggu beliau berkunjung ke lapak saya dan melihat produk goodiebags yang saya jual. Dia tidak membeli satupun goodiebags saat itu.

Beberapa hari setelah itu, bu Rogayah mengirimkan saya sms dan menyatakan berminat dengan goodiebagsnya namun untuk harga yang lebih murah tentunya. Saya terpaksa menjawab bahwa saya tidak bisa menurunkan harga reseller karena harga yang saya berikan sudah merupakan harga terbawah. Cukup alot hingga akhirnya saya putuskan untuk memberikan produk yang standarnya menurut saya kurang bagus, namun harganya pas dengan yang diminta si Ibu.

Just Show Them

THE AGATE

I was preparing my stuffs when bang Sandy came to me and gave me 6 pcs of rings. He said that i have to sell this and bring him some amount of money. Agate ring is something new to me. I don't even know what make it precious.

I took picture on those rings and put them in my blackberry's display picture. I was not really sure if i can sell those rings. My friends are mostly young but agate is identical with old man :P

To me it's not about sell or not to sell, it's more about try. Lets give those ring a try. They deserve it.

How to sell these goodiebags? -- Ideas

If you have put your reptilian brain on the bed, it's now your turn to think about how to sell these goodiebags?!

There are many ways to grab good ideA. You can just lie down your body and think or you can go to the toilet and think. You can think even when you ride a bike!

The most known method to grab ideas is brainstorming. You may ask your partner, husband, wife or family to think about how to sell these goodiebags. The more brains involve in this brainstorming the more ideas you get. But please don't MAKE any mistake. Before you ask them to join brainstorming session, please ask them to put their reptilian brain on the bed.

How to Sell This Goodiebags? -- Reptilian Brain

Mungkin anda yang sudah berkunjung ke toko kami akan bertanya tentang bagaimana cara menjual goodiebags ?! dan kira-kira, inilah sejumlah pertanyaan yang mungkin ada di benak anda saat berfikir untuk menjadi reseller kami :

"Kalo gue ambil ini, gimana gue dagangnya?",

"Emang laku?"

"Kalo ga laku, rugi dong?!"

"Ke mana ngejualnya?"

"Di Kantor??? Oh...please deh, temen2 udah pada jualan semua"

"Di rumah?? Tetangga pada kere semua, mana ada yg beli?"

And many more questions should be in your mind. If you think one step ahead, you will come to us and buy a dozen or half. and you will say "Oke deh, gue coba. Semoga laku yah...."

Tell Them About Your Expertise

Banyak cara untuk menjual, baik barang maupun jasa. Mulai dari memasang iklan di internet maupun di depan lapak. Membuat kartu nama, brosur dan booklet, semuanya adalah cara menjual atau memasarkan produk.

Untuk sebagian orang, menjual berarti ada barang yang harus dia jual, tidak peduli apa barangnya, bagaimana kualitasnya, intinya barang tersebut harus dijual. Seperti tukang sayur yang biasa lewat di depan rumah, pastinya kebanyakan mereka akan membiarkan ibu-ibu mengerumuni dagangannya dan membayar. Karena apa? karena mereka sudah terlalu lelah untuk menjelaskan produknya, bagaimana kualitas ikan dan sayur yang mereka punya.

Linchpin

Have you ever thought about to be a boss?! a director or an owner of a company?!

Linchpin is one of Seth Godin's book. I brought it couple weeks ago in Gramedia Cinere. Yup, i am trying to increase my reading interest. I bought three books to read but i have just completed reading one of them. Linchpin is the second one. I am in the middle of it now.

If you have ever dreamed about to be a boss or the one who's indispensable, the one who is really needed by a company, then you are dreaming a "linchpin".

Dalam bahasa Indonesia, "linchpin" berarti "pasak pada As roda". Pasak dalam setiap konstruksi merupakan hal yang penting. Bahkan coba anda bayangkan jika sebuah rumah pasaknya tiba-tiba runtuh???that's linchpin!

Lihat Celah di Samping Sang Gajah

Pernah terdengar oleh saya seorang teman mengatakan bahwa hidup adalah kumpulan masalah. kenapa? karena setiap hari, kita akan dihadapkan kepada masalah demi masalah, baik itu masalah yang kompleks maupun masalah yang ringan. Contoh saja, katakan sekarang anda hidup di siang hari, pekerjaan yang anda lakukan butuh penyelesaian, itu adalah salah satu contoh masalah, macet di jalan saat pulang, itu masalah lainnya....mungkin itu adalah alasan teman saya mengatakan bahwa hidup adalah kumpulan masalah. bahkan pada saat dia mendapatkan proyek besar, dia bilang itu adalah masalah.

Positifnya, teman saya itu berkata : "proyek ini adalah masalah yang harus diselesaikan, dan itu adalah tantangan, indahnya hidup ini", begitu kira-kira katanya.

Sekarang mari kita bayangkan masalah sebagai seekor gajah purba yang besar yang ada di depan mata kita. ke mana kita memandang saat ada gajah besar di depan kita?!tentu saja perhatian anda akan tercurah kepada besarnya si gajah yang nongkrong tanpa dosa di depan anda, bukan?!

week#5 Tell Them That It's All For Sale

we got a good lesson last week : "earlier you come to the market, better spot you get"

so this morning i woke up earlier and prayed to Allah "ya Rabb, lariskan dagangan saya"

it was about 5AM in the morning when i arrived at home after morning pray in musholla. my wife had prepared everything we need for selling goodiebags in sunday market last night. goodiebags were packed, hangers were also packed in another bags.

0520AM i went to the market alone. i brought two huge red bags and wuuussss.....

i arrived at the market at about 0540AM. The other sellers were preparing their store but i hadn't brought my team. My wife was still at home trying to wake up Mima and Baim, both children are so hard to be awakened. So, i just put two mats on the ground and the bags on the top of it. You know the risk, the bags could be stolen by anyone. Alhamdulillah, the bags and the mats were still there on the ground and complete when i arrived with my wife and children. Still i had to ask my Dad's help to bring another bags (maklum, masih pengendara sepeda montorrr).

Brochuring is Easy (Resulting)

so, you already have a nice brochure template, printed it into hundreds or thousands copies and spread them in some points. what's next? yup, the result!!

THE RESULT

you must wait a while for the brochure to work and show you some good result. i was very happy to have first short message from my reseller candidate at the first day i spread the brochure. It was bu Sarah who sent me sms, she was my first reseller gained by brochuring. She told me that she had my brochure from her daughter who went to the sunday market this morning. She booked a dozen goodiebags that day and i delivered them after lunch.

actually, we had sold 6 pcs goodiebags in the sunday market at the sameday and the brochure gave us another one dozen. it had happened in our 2nd week of selling goodiebags in sunday market.

Brochuring is Easy (Spreading)

setelah anda selesai membuat brosur yang cantik, pastikan semua informasi yang terkandung di dalamnya benar dan sesuai dengan harapan anda. pastikan tidak ada salah ketik, terlebih lagi pada bagian kontak yang tertuju kepada anda.

tugas berikutnya yang juga mudah adalah menyebarkan brosur ini ke seluruh penjuru dunia. ya, penjuru dunia. terlalu berlebihan?tidak juga! ada banyak cara untuk kita menyebarkan brosur yang telah kita buat hingga brosur ini bisa sampai ke Papua atau bahkan Norwegia!

ONLINE

cara paling mudah adalah dengan menggunakan internet! jika ada sudah memiliki kontak yang baik di belahan bumi lainnya, anda kirim brosur anda sekarang juga! send the brochures via email! brosur yang baik akan tetap menawan meski dikirim via email. cara kedua untuk memanfaatkan internet bagi penyebaran brosur anda adalah dengan membuat website di mana anda simpan brosur tersebut di salah halaman pada website tersebut.

jadi, singkat kata, you already have two online marketing tools : email and websites.

actually nobody will go to your websites if you don't tell them to. so, you can put you website address in your  email signature, publish them via sms, email and many other media you can use. You can use your facebook account to announce your website address.

anytime you need to post on it, put your website address in it. no only facebook, you can also use yahoo messenger to announce your website address. send broadcast message to your contacts and make sure you use nice words to announce it. tawarkan nilai lebih dari broadcast message anda semisal "konfirmasi hari ini, dapatkan voucher gratis Rp. 10000 untuk setiap pembelian 1 lusin goodiebags!"

Dan masih banyak lagi cara untuk menyebarkan brosur secara online dengan memancing para calon pembeli menuju ke website anda. Layanan iklan via sms bisa digunakan dengan biaya yang cukup murah. Saya sendiri belum coba hal itu karena website saya baru saja rampung tadi malam. Dalam waktu dekat, insya Allah saya akan gunakan media iklan tersebut dan lihat berapa hits kunjungan per hari menjangkau website saya.

Jika anda perhatikan paragraf di atas, saya mentautkan kata "website" di atas dengan website jualan saya. whenever you click on it, you'll be brought to my website. There are so many ways to bring customer candidates into your websites. be creative!

OFFLINE

You may have seen my pictures when i spread the brochure in my previous posts, that is one of hundred ways to spread the brochure offline. To perform nicely when you do it offline, you have to pay attention on how you look, your words and smile.

when you spread the brochure online, you don't worry about your face and appearance. it will be different when you face the people directly, face to face. they will look at your face and smile, they will observe you from head to toe. wear nice clothing, brush your teeth, practice your words and smile before you go down to the real crowd.

one thing you may not forget, bring your product samples when you spread the brochure offline. sometimes people ask you something related to the product and product sample is the real answer for their questions.

look at the picture on the left, i bring two product samples. so i can explain what is inside the brochure.

how effective is the brochure for selling your product? you'll find out the answer on my next post insya Allah...

agbtopmarketer

http://www.agbdistro.blogspot.com/ | YM:agbisme

Brochuring is Simple (Starting)

SALES RESULTS

i had started "brochuring" since my 2nd week of selling goodiebags. it was triggered by negative sales result we had on our first week. there's nothing new about brochure.  i am sure that  you have known this marketing tool since you were born, maybe :)

but sometimes we're just too lazy to create a good brochure and spread them to our customer candidates. or else we don't have any idea on how to make a good brochure, we don't know where to spread them. think!

SIMPLE

you don't have to be a photoshop expert to create great brochure. just use your imagination, play some words and colors. that are some tips from me to create your first eye catching brochure. remember the words : imagination, words and colors.

weeek#4 and its more challanging

jualan di lapak pasar kaget memang unik. di sini biayanya cukup murah, namun untuk tempat, siapa berani jamin?! anda masih di tempat yang sama dari minggu ke minggu?!. pengalaman kali ini, kami terlambat setengah jam dan tiba-tiba lapak kami "disambar" orang. siapa cepat dia dapat. walhasil, kami harus bergeser ke lapak sebelah yang untungnya masih kosong.

itulah mungkin hikmah dari bangun pagi. supaya rejeki ga "dipatol" ayam... :)

sejak jam 0630 AM saya membagikan brosur dan sesekali saya kembali ke lapak melihat perkembangan kepadatannya. hanya saja, lapak terlihat agak sepi kali ini. tak lama saya kembali ke gerbang dan kembali membagikan brosur hingga jam 0745 AM. Lapak masih juga terlihat sepi. saya coba amati sekeliling dan melakukan analisa singkat. berikut hasil pengamatan dan analisa saya terhadap situasi pasar di pagi hari ini :

Goodiebags Challenge : 10000 goodiebags soldout by the end of Dec 2012

terdengar sangat tidak masuk akal? atau justru sebaliknya? semua itu tergantung persepsi, pengalaman dan sikap mental anda mensikapi tantangan yang saya sebutkan di atas.

Desember 2012 masih jauh, masih 7 bulan lagi! dan saat ini kami sudah hampir menjual sebanyak 3000pcs of goodiebags. jadi, untuk mencapai target tersebut, setidaknya kami harus membukukan penjualan sebanyak 1000 goodiebags per bulannya. mungkinkah???

impossible is nothing or nothing is impossible?!

week#3 it works!

it was April 29th, 2012, 

on week#2 we made it, we had sold out 19 goodiebags. 6 pcs were bought by end user and the other 13 were bought by reseller. it was awesome!! the reseller called us and told me that she had had the brochure from her daughter who went to the market. amazing! why??

she didn't even go to the market but she got the brochure! so, don't be so selective to your customer candidates, spread the brochure to everyone and let Allah "ping" their heart to come to you.

this story is about our 3rd sales activity in UIN Sunday market. 19 is a good number for beginner, but as a human being, 19 is not enough, LOL. that was why i have to make something new in my brochure, something attractive. what is it?? discount!! i discussed this strategy with my wife and she agreed to give customers a discount. what's the rule ? 

"everyone who comes with our brochure will get a Rp. 2500.-/pc discount!".

after setting up the store, i move to the gateway and spread the brochure. not only brochure, i brought two sample of goodiebags so that people will see the products. 

"silahkan Bu, toko kami di dekat parkiran motor. Bawa brosur ini dan dapatkan diskonnya", i told the customers. the strategy seemed to work, many people were interested and they came to me asking for the brochure. it was fascinating when you feel your strategy works. i brought about 150 sheets of brochure and spend almost one hour to spread them infront of UIN Sunday market.

"Apa ini pak?", a mom asked.

"Ini tas anak, bu. Bagus...", i answered.

"Bisa kita berbisnis?", she asked.

and the story went so far up until now, i had sent 5 dozens of goodiebags to Sulawesi. that's the result of week#3.

i run out of the brochures so that i got back to the store and took a rest. i let my wife and sister to assist the customers. it seemed that we had a lot of customers today. we closed the store 30 minutes later than usual. it was 0900 AM when we finally closed our store.

"dapat berapa kita hari ini?", i asked my wife.

"lumayan kayanya, 36 pcs, kalo ga salah", she explained.

"mima!!papa berhasil!! hari ini kita menjual banyak!", i told my Fatima.

and then we discussed our glory on the way we got home. 

"Alhamdulillaaaah", i praised Allah for His blessing today.

so, the total sales of our offline selling in UIN Sunday Market is about 17-20 dozens. if we count in detail, its about 3x1,5 hours. quiet effective? go to the market, now!

agbtopmarketer

www.tokopedia.com/topmarket

Week#1 Sweetest Sweat

it was still dark in the morning,  i and my family were waiting for my Dad. we're going to UIN Sunday Market this morning. there were a lot of stuffs that might be brought to the market. i have one motorcyle and it's not enough to bring them all.

why was it so many things to bring?

actually, i and my wife had decided to become a goodiebags distributor since i had completed my "creative thinking" training. sales is not something new to us. we had ever built a garage sale in our grandma's house and it had a great result. to become  a distributor is something new to us and it challanging. to add more challanges in our selling experience, we decided to go down to sunday market, to become a real "marketer".......and here comes the story :

Creative Thinking

Ide menjadi distributor goodiebag aneka kartun sebenarnya bukan ide saya pribadi. adalah Uliana, istri saya yang melontarkan ide itu manakala saya tantang dia untuk menyampaikan ide-ide kreatif untuk merubah uang 100rb menjadi 1 juta dalam waktu 1 bulan.

Dari pertanyaan sederhana "gimana caranya merubah uang Rp. 100rb menjadi Rp. 1juta dalam waktu 1 bulan?" merebaklah beberapa ide cemerlang dan salah satu diantaranya adalah berjualan goodiebag anak. dari sekian banyak ide, inilah yang akhirnya kami pilih untuk diujicoba.

Creative Marketing

i am basicly a technical guy who deals with technical projects and electronic telco equipments. but two weeks ago i went to book store and bought three non technical books and one of them is about marketing.

the book titled with "Bisnis Pasti Sukses dengan Creative Marketing" is written by Andrew Griffiths an author form Australia. it has 324 pages and quiet interesting for me, a new retail learning marketer. it talks about marketing of course. i like this book because it straight to the points with exact examples. one of  its topic is about brochures, a marketing method that i tried to use it in my second week of selling goodiebags in UIN sunday market.

another good marketing strategy told in this book is about your customer. treat them as a human, give them smile, your best smile and don't forget them. i practice this strategy with sending short messages to my resellers. i have about 10 resellers now and i want them to be good sellers who can sell thousand goodiebags.

i send them short messages about how to increase their selling revenue. i read this book and share a point to my resellers. here's the example of my short message 

"Dear Resellers, brosur adalah alat marketing yang cukup ampuh untuk meningkatkan penjualan. Sudahkah anda membuat brosur yang cantik dan memikat?"

"Dear Resellers, salah satu tips sukses pemasaran adalah dengan panggilan lanjutan. Jangan lupakan pelanggan anda, hubungi mereka segera setelah mereka membeli dari anda."

i am not sure they will do both suggestions above, but i ve done my job as a goodiebags distributor and at least, if they need marketing strategy, i will be glad to become their marketing advisor.

agbtopmarketer

www.tokopedia.com/topmarket

week #2 nobody knows my product !

April, 22nd 2012

it was a cloudy sunday morning and we still have our spirit to sell our products in UIN Sunday Market. we brought all of our products using two motorcycles and started to sell them all at 7am.

this was our second offline selling experience, i tried one new thing this week. Brochures! 

why did i think about the brochure?we'd had a lesson in our first selling the week before. we'd sold only 4 pcs of goodiebags in our first week. that were failure. even my little girl Fatima said "Papa gagal, hari ini !". that were painful but those word from Fatima kept me thinking how to sell this products massively.

i had printed the brochures the night before i went to the market. my wife and children stayed in the store, i went to the gate and gave the brochures to everyone passed in front of me. Many sellers give their brochures without saying anything, simply just give and let the people pass them. Triggered by hiden store and new products, i put a little difference in my "brochuring activity", i put a smile and and told the people where my store is.

"Silahkan Bu, toko kami di dekat parkiran motor". Some people asked me a question "Apa ini pak?", then i had a chance to explain them about my product. "Ini tas anak dengan lebih dari 50 jenis gambar kartun, jika ibu minat, silahkan lihat sample barangnya di toko kami. Di sana ada tim saya yang siap membantu".

those were the words i used to say to explain the people about my store and products.

0830 AM, we were about to close our store and calculated today's selling result. count, count and count !!we did it !! we sold 6 pcs of goodiebags!! not to many???? well at least we had attracted 2 more customers to buy our products!

i kept thinking, why it was not significant result we got?!then i had excuses in my mind "mungkin orang belum tahu produknya, mungkin karena toko kita yang terlalu terpencil sehingga brosur tidak menunjukkan kekuatannya menarik pengunjung. tapi setidaknya, kita berhasil menjual 6 pcs goodiebags hari ini".

we went home and took a rest.

"bipbip" an sms got in to my cellphone. it was asking about my products! a reseller candidate seemed to be interested in my products. i was really happy so that i did some chit chat with her and deal for one dozens of goodiebags!! yey, i added one new reseller!!

i brought 13 pcs of goodiebags to this new reseller and finished the transaction at the same day!!so, it was not totally failure, sometimes we have to be patient and let the brochure take its role.

agbtopmarketer

www.tokopedia.com/topmarket

Hello World

Hello world !

April 27, 2012 23:57 WIB

saturday night is lately becoming a busy night for me and my wife. we are preparing our goodiebags to be sold tomorrow. yup, goodiebags! so, what is so special about that?? well, you'll find out how this stuff makes our saturday night become a busy night in my next stories, insya Allah.

i am printing brochures while my wife is selecting goodiebags to be shown up tomorrow in sunday market. we have done this activity, selling goodiebags in sunday market, for last three weeks. if you are interested in our offline store, you can visit our "lapak"  in UIN Sunday Market (Pasar Kaget UIN) every sunday morning from 7am to 9am JKT Time.

Goodiebags With Characters

Selling Story

at the first time we sold these goodiebags, the selling result was not very good. we could only sell 4 pieces of it. our store is located near by the motorcycle parking lots. it is not a good place to sell anything. why? it's isolated from customers, no body will walk infront of our store if they know the right path to the market. so, practically they who walk in front of our store are the ones who get lost. by the time they realize that there is no gateway to the crowd, they will come back to the right path and walk through our store.

April 15, 2012 is our first offline selling activity and it was a hard selling experience. i brought my wife, mom and both children. the sunday market usually filled by the crowd starts at 7 AM and it will become quiet again at 9AM. so i have just a little time to sell my products here.

Challanges

the challanges are hidden located store, new product and so little time you have to sell even only single goodiebag. how to overcome those issues?? find out my selling trick and marketing strategy in my next stories, insya Allah.

terus semangat!