During this summer I have been defining all the procedures of the production department. It has been very interesting due to its importance when growing the company. The best way to define them is by doing a project and writing all the actions carried out during it. This method takes up a lot of time but it’s a good investment for the future.

I don’t think many service companies have their own procedures manual in order to make the company more efficient. The fact that makes you focus your best resources to the most important actions is fascinating. Dividing the process in smaller steps increases productivity and reduces costs.

In my job at Costa, after visiting different cities throughout Spain, like Zaragoza, Albacete, Bilbao, Santander, I have closed my first sale. It took place in Santander, a big independent supermarket has bought us 6 boxes of 10 briks*, it is a very nice supermarket with exclusive products. I have to point out that our products are positioned in the high quality segment.

Our sales strategy is divided in three steps:

Segmentation: We first segment our possible clients in large chains, small chains and independent supermarkets. In my job our target are independent supermarkets.

Offer: After identifying our target, I visit them and I present our products, as well, I give them a sample.  Since ours is a small company, we cannot afford a large promotion campaign, therefore, we know our products are really good and we usually get new customers by giving them samples.

Lead development and sales close: Afterwards, back in the office, I contact them asking for feedback. I have to say that I closed more sales but our sales conditions made them impossible. Otherwise, I managed to change our sales conditions and now we are able to sale less boxes at the first purchase.

* brik: a Tetra Pak packaging for liquids.

I have had the first meeting with our Advertising Agency. During the meeting I have learned that you must have a marketing plan and a brand strategy. If you don’t have them, you don’t know exactly which are the benefits of your product or brand and who is your target. It is important because, even if it’s on your mind, you must have guidelines and principles which drive you and make you more productive, and, in case of doubt, you can consult them and make a better decision.

Also, I have learned that you cannot exclude potential consumers by insinuating that your product is not for them. It is better to not limit your target and to promote the benefits of your product that may impact potential consumers.

Having once decided to create a Social Media Consultancy, that was the time to clearly define the service. I have always thought that the most important thing at the beginning was to define the mission and the vision of the company. But, since you are only doing one thing and, specifically, a consultancy, there is not too much to set.

We started defining the service, and it was specially strange because if you want to grow, you have to set every small aspect of the service in advance. That is what we did, we clearly defined the service and we agreed to write different internal handbooks that will help future employees understand what to do in every step of the process. It is really important if you want to grow, using this method, a new employee arrives, you give her the handbooks and she can start to work immediately. You save money and time training her if you hadn’t these tools.

In November 2009, TICTarragona (which I am a member) held a conference about mobile Internet. We had a great time those days and, during the breaktimes, we spoke about different things of our lifes. It was the first time we spent so much time together. There, different ideas came up, and one of them appeared in David Serra’s mind. His father was a successful advertiser, and his former clients told him that advertisement hadn’t ever been the same since he retired.

Thanks to new period of Social Media, David thought that he would love to use those clients to reinvent advertisement in Tarragona, and to make them succeed with online marketing strategies. We didn’t talk about it during the next two months due to Christmas and New Year’s Eve. But, in January 2010, we decided that the moment to start this new venture had arrived. We organized different meetings in order to define what we would do. One thing was sure, the team was made up by Juanjo Ferrer, David Serra, Jaime Polo and our advisor Jordi Planas.

This team has the power of creativity, the power to bring new ideas to Social Media because David Serra is a movie scriptwriter and Juanjo Ferrer is a movie director. They put brilliant ideas for our clients.

The most important thing I learned during this first project is that if you don’t push hard to make ideas become true, it is impossible to achieve your goals. You have to set deadlines and work hard. Fortunately we succeeded.

Recently, Facebook announced a new feature: Community Pages. In my opinion, this is a turn in their business model. It was only based on online advertising and I expect they will be charging for owning an official fanpage. With so much companies around the world, and with more than 400 million users, business will be willing to pay that money for being there, and using all the features available to increase their sales.

Pay-per-click is not profitable enough. As people gain experience online they become aware of frauds and they tend to reduce clicking on advertising. As well, visual advertising becomes invisible as users visit the same page more and more. In conclusion, the probably new Facebook’s strategy is reasonable.

Since I read “Linchpin” by Seth Godin, which I totally recommend, I have been thinking of how to show the projects I am involved with. The idea of transforming my blog into a diary in which I explain what I do in my life has become a reality, and, from now on, I will illustrate my activities and my projects’ evolution. Furthermore, I will use it to give my opinions about marketing and business issues as well as experiences I have with companies that are not performing well in terms of marketing or strategy.