Week 8: People, Proof and Partnerships

Does the 90:10 service/sales rule still hold true?

There are many different ways to interpret the 90/10 rule depending on which context you are looking at it from. When looking at a business the 90/10 rule ideally is when businesses spend 90% on direct marketing and 10% of time on skill development (Buzzle, 2009). Whereas the 90:10 in sales performance is 90% of sales are produced by 10% of the sales team (About.com, 2009). Ideally this does make sense in which when a customer goes to the store not always does the customer get the sales person to help. Whereas when marketing and selling online this would hold semi true in which the customer would go to the online store and purchase products without a sales person. Or the customer could ask for some ‘virtual assistance’. This rule holds true because only 10% probably would come from the sales force aka assistance.

Perhaps you now just want the best deal?

When buying products online ideally you are trying to receive the best deal. When purchasing products online oppose to in store it is a perception that you would receive a better deal. So by marketing and selling online this cuts out the middle man when selling products and makes it more direct. With the 90:10 rule without having a sales person generating most of the sales the customer can look around and receive the best deal (that they perceive to be). Price is a big factor so this ideally motivates customer spending.
You may have virtual friends, so what proof do you want that virtual sales people are real? (?!!?)

What about a virtual lecturer?

Realistically as a consumer I would not know whether or not the virtual sales person was real or not. Things being on the internet lead people to have to assume the sales person is real. The internet can be deceiving in which people can assume people are real because technology is advancing so much that sometime soon we may not have to have real people doing these services on the internet. Although this is just an assumption.

Would you really want to replace me with..?

When thinking about replacing a lecturer with a virtual lecturer there are good points and bad. Ideally having subjects online, students wouldn’t really know whether the lecturer was there or not. Ideally by having online classes students don’t really see or meet with the lecturer. By having a lecturer being virtual this could be a downside if the lecturer was just computer generated and would be limited in certain ways. When discussing with a real lecturer over the internet they can relate and know what you are talking about. But with a generated lecture this could be rather difficult. This could lead to issues but on the other hand it may not.

Finally, how do you manage marketing relationships with virtual partners?

Ideally you would think that the relationship is mostly the same where the relationship is purely online based and all transactions and meetings would consist on an online basis. After looking at how you would manage the marketing relationship there would be an alliance with the other company in this case marketing company. Managing with virtual partners could be seen as the same as partners just online.


References:

· Buzzle.(2009). Small business:90/10 rule. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from:
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-11-2006-101933.asp
· About.com(2009). How to beat the 80/20 rule in sales performance. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from: http://marketing.about.com/od/salestraining/a/salesperform.htm