What I learned at the event?
a. Coaching, as a word, has an interesting origin; I ooked it up  and found out that coach as in basketball coach, began as a Hungarian cart;
b. Unlike training, coaching gives you a solution on how to do one thing;
c. Coaching is great when there’s a difference between:
i. What I wish and speak out loud; (commitment)
ii. What I actually do;
d. Try formulating things in a positive way;
e. Book to read: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t;
f. Movie to see: Home (with English Subtitles).

Pictures I took at the event:

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Bottom line: the training was very useful, I learned great things and, most of all, I did this while enjoying things; Great training, highly recommended.

Some pictures at the event:

A. The first part of the conference

1. “New strategies of development in the context of crisis” (PPT) – Daniel ENESCU, General Director for Daedalus Group
How does the behavior when buying changes?
1. Before vs. After:
a. experimenting (try new things) vs. making a sure choice (certainty);
b. more is better (never ask if you really need it) vs. lesser and better;
c. I spoil myself (an attitude) vs. I take care of others (family, responsibilities);
d. luxury (not necessarily luxury products, but premium brands) is a trend vs. “eco” is the new luxury (recycling);
e. I replace (with new items) vs. I fix;
f. my resources are infinite (continuous growth) vs. my resources are finite (these are extremes);
g. I do shopping vs. choosing is stressful;
h. I am on my own vs. I decide with my family.

I gave up to some products, or stopped experimenting (see carbonated water, coffee), or look for cheaper alternatives (sunflower oil). There is a tendency to stop consuming juice.

A person out of four frequently buys products that are on sales / promotions.

A vast majority read the advertisements in magazines.

Discounts, promotions, prices – they all matter more in the buying process. There is an equilibrium point, which represents the value of the brand (”how much I pay is how much the product is really worth”).

A lot of the decisions are taken at the shelves.

2. “Revitalization of electronics and home appliances” (PPT) – Dragos SIMION, President of Flamingo International
The sales costs had to be adjusted.
We had to optimize the working capital, postpone expanding plans and some investments, reduce the number of suppliers and prioritize among them, close non-performing stores, close small size stores, focus on large size stores.

3. “Reducing operational costs by automating bill processing” (PPT) – Theodor DUMBRAVA, Business Process Services Manager, Xerox Romania and Republic of Moldova
An idea to take home: You can reduce costs by providing a bonus: if a buyer of yours pays its bill within 10 days, he gets a 2 percent bonus, which is larger than any bank interest.
If a bill is processed entirely manually, the cost per one bill can be up to 50 dollars.

4. “How to have a lot of clients in the malls yet again?” (PPT) – Razvan GHEORGHE, General Manager Cushmann & Wakefield

B. The second part focused on 10 marketing solutions for increased sales:

1. “The story of a client with fidelity or how to sell with fidelity?” (PDF) – Radu SCHMITZER, Sales Director Linea Directa Communications
I liked this quote:
“The main goal of the business is not simply making money but creating clients …” (Peter DRUCKER)

This was fine also:
“Business’ aim must be creating and retaining the clients” (Theodore LEVITT, Harvard Business School)

All that a customer wants is really related to:
a. Relevant information;
b. A pleasant experience in the store;
c. Easy methods to buy things;

68% of the clients (I’m not sure if in Romania or worldwide) are brand switchers. Only 5% are loyal to a certain brand.

73% of the clients us at least 5 different information channels prior to buying a product.

26% of the clients only buy from one retailer (universal store, web site, kiosk, gas station).

Target of the retails store: the consumers in shopping mode (set to buy something).

70% of the decisions to buy products are done at the shelves.

In-store activities:
a. selecting and positioning products;
b. environment within the store;
c. conversations between the buyer and the sellers.

Who are the clients that are appropriate to your business? Find out their name, where they live, why have they bought, what do they need

2. “Marketing solutions for increasing sales” (PPT) – Marius LUCIAN, General Manager Reveal Marketing Research
Big errors:
a. giving up premium brands;
b. altering the image of premium brands (see the solution of Vodafone, who tackles the problem of price with no cuts, but by making sure the clients know exactly how much they pay).

You should keep the premium brands intact.

Put more emphasis on the shelf presence. There is a discrepancy between what the marketer sets as guidelines within an office, and the reality at the store level.

There is an error in trying to be “The cheapest price” for a highly competitive market. On any market it can’t be the same positioning for any brand.

The smallest price is an added value which is not believed by the market.

What is tricky in trying to advertise a promotional price for only one product out of the whole range of products a supermarket has?
a. The product must be physically present in the store (there is not always on stock);
b. The promotional price must be sustained on all the products in the store, not only on that specific product (this never happens).

3. “Marketing solutions for increasing sales – Retail as brand” (PPT) – Mona OPRAN, Managing Director Saatchi & Saatchi
65% of all buyers are not conditioned by the price.

In 84% of the cases, the brand can make the difference if a product is bought in favor of another one.

Treating the store as a brand can be a solution for:
a. Loyalty of the buyers;
b. Increasing the shopping list;
c. Increasing the value of own brands (in-store brands);
d. Increasing market share.

You can have yoga classes in a sports article store.

Make:
a. Your clients;
b. Your employees;
c. Yourself;
say: “I love my store”.

4. “Blue Ocean Strategy” (PPT) – Eusediu MARGASOIU, Managing Partner The Network
You have two main options:
a. Fight within the limits of your ocean and fight the competition (blood bath = red ocean);
b. Jump from a market with fierce competition into another market.

This is The Blue Ocean Strategy:

What I’d do better had I organized the conference?
a. I’d start the conference at the scheduled time;
b. I’d make sure that the PowerPoint presentations are on the laptop one day prior to the event;
c. I’d have a quick look at the PowerPoint presentations and see if there are any small-sized fonts in them (I personally had problem with this);
d. Do a prior instruction of the speaker on the microphone and pointer;
e. I’d make sure the speakers don’t promote their own business with more than a small reference;
f. On the footer of Retail360 web page, there are a few error messages:”Antreprenor360: No Feed Key Found, Cariere360: No Feed Key Found”, etc.;
g. I would allow some presentation to take a little longer, if needed.

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Bottom line: All-in-all, a great conference to take part to, lots of things to learn in there.

First of all what did I learned about promoting a coaching or a training business?
1. Most of the promotion should be on:
a. Competency;
b. Human Factor;
Those are the most important factors in deciding to participate at a training or coaching session;
2. You should avoid promoting a brand or doing a commercial;
3. You have to convince the consumer that the training brings him value;
4. Lots of hard-to-define insights from entrepreneurs;
5. Bobby Voicu answered me a private question about web directories; Thanks!

What did I like best about the conference?
1. The form for entering the conference looked just great (nicely done);
2. The questions received rather long answers; It was not a fast, quick, rapid fire of answers; Instead, the questions were answered with lots of details; Lovely!
3. You could see that the speaker had a great time; It was fun, people laughed, everybody seemed to enjoy the show;
4. Both the questions put and the answers received were smart;
5. The promoting of the conference was good (and I helped a bit);
6. The sweets were delicious;
7. Speakers came from various fields of activity;
8. Great place for networking;
9. There was great emphasis on “How is it in Romania?” rather than “How is it worldwide?”; That’s just great.

What would I do better?
1. If I am presented with a form with 5 questions to enter the conference, I’d love to see those questions asked at the conference; If you want me to have just one question, that’s fine, but asking me for 5 things, from which I should pick just one – well, that’s not that good;
2. There were two speakers in the room at the last panel of speakers:
a. Speakers who spoke a lot;
b. Speakers who spoke less than a lot;
I would have preferred to see them all speaking; (this could be arranged by the organizers, by invited the speakers to – well – speak;
3. The conference should have begun at 10 and have a schedule; The conference begun later than 10, and all the day there was a rush to recover the lost time, which ended in a very short lunch break; I would have preferred the conference to start at 10 and keep the schedule;
4. A lot of small breaks? I’d much rather prefer a smaller number of larger breaks;
5. At the beginning speakers were not introduced and I had to deduce who does what (an answer from an accountant is usually from an answer by a advertiser);
6. I had the impression that the catering was done something like that:
a. Either too many waiters at the same time;
b. Either no waiter;
Anyhow, it was fine, no big deal;
7. In the morning it would have been Ok to have some snacks;
8. I was in the first row and I didn’t hear everything; I wonder how it was in the back of the room.

All-in-all, a great conference, lots of things to learn and to enjoy the show.