The strategy and Marketing
A week before the official opening of the store, the team will engage in rigorous promotion and awareness campaigns. The campaign focus will be on educating pet owners on the need to feed them with quality food and food supplements. The promotion campaign will involve door-to-door pets’ examination exercise free of charge to pet owners and advising them accordingly. The top of the agenda will be sanitation and the health of the pets.
With the large number of pet owners expected to be visited, the team will select a sample of them and offer to feed or offer to feed directly to the owners for a period of three days and then compare the outcome with the previous state of the pet. The above exercise is aimed at building confidence, trust, and as a testing practice to the product: “Best for your pet.” The team will supply the nutrient-rich food 3 times a day or accord customer requirements supplied for their pets, and then gauge the response of the animal to the foods. During the exercise, every potential customer visited will be given a leaflet; the number of leaflets that each customer gets will be determined by the number of pets that he or she stocks; each pet qualifies for two leaflets.
The leaflets given to visited customers will be redeemable to an amount equivalent to $10 in the first three days of the store opening; despite the redemption package, to qualify a customer needed to use at least $30. It is important to clarify that each pet will qualify for two leaflets, thus a pet-owners have the option of using both of them but keep the conditions of the leaflets. The main idea of having the leaflet redemption package is to encourage customers to start buying the products right from the opening of the store. Note each leaflet/coupon will be retained with the store after it has been redeemed, thus it can only be used once within the three first days of trading.
Each leaflet will also have yet another package, every time a customer comes with the leaflet, he will be entitled to a trade discount of 10%, making him buy products at 90%. The package also follows the rules of three days redemption and buying consumption equal to or more than $30. Note each leaflet/coupon will be retained with the store after it has been redeemed, thus it can only be used once within the three first days of trading. Discounts will also be tools of marketing that the company will adopt, there will be quantity discounts and promotional discounts; there are no criteria of discounting customers other than the set policy in the discount documents. Those customers who buy bulk and live around the store will be given free transport for the products.
The marketing and customer management plan for the store will have a membership option; the option will run from the first day of the store. To qualify as a member, customers need to use at least $50 on the product. With the consumption, one will automatically qualify to be a member and enjoy all the rights and special considerations thereafter.
After the $50 purchase, a customer will be given a membership card which will have the following options; a future purchase of an amount of $100 will earn the cardholder 10 rechargeable/redeemable points, the points can be redeemed in the future as the store communicates. Those customers who make a purchase of more than $200 will earn 30 rechargeable points. The idea is meant to develop loyalty from customers and encouraging them to buy from the store.
On an occasional basis, the store will be engaging professionals who will be tasked with the role of advising customers on the various method of feeding their animals. The method will target both occasional customers, on one customer, and potential customers; to get these customers, the store will be encouraging customers to leave their contacts so than when such programs are being run, they can be contacted.
With the professionals, the store will improve the quality of its food further; it will ensure that customers are satisfied with the results of their pets. Health and sanitation will be the main topics of discussion in many of the seminars with professionals. To ensure that the company does not incur much with the professionals, the management will encourage and finance short-term causes to the staff so that they can handle minor conditions of pets and can recommend appropriately to pet-owners of the best feeding or medication to give their pets.
To maintain a good relationship with clients, on an occasional basis, specialists/workers at the store will be visiting customers to see how they manage, feed, and keep their pets. In the event something amiss has been noted, then the customer will be advised accordingly (Thompson and Martin, 2010).
My reflection on experiences in working in a group and developing the business idea and strategy
From the group, I have learned to appreciate the differences in reasoning, understanding capacity, and perception. When communing up with the idea of “Best for your pet” some team members were feeling that the idea would work perfectly and the project was viable. On the other hand, there were some who felt that the line of business is saturated and venturing in the market was challenging. Making a decision to move on was a challenge that the team had to overcome; the team was keen that despite what, a decision had to be made.
One important aspect that came up is the power, role, and ability of a leader, whether formally elected or emerged from the group. The leader, in our case, emerged can be accredited with the success attained in the group so far, he was involved in almost all decision making although he considered the input of other team members. The charisma of the team leader made it easy for him to command respect among the team members and they were willing to listen and be guided by him.
Convincing people and shaping their minds to move in one direction was a challenge that I noted in the team. Some people have different attitudes, others disliked their teammates, and others wanted to dominate in every debate while others were conservatives. In the context of an organization, I learned that to have an orchestrated team, an organization should have policies that facilitate staff development, training, intellectualism development, and talent management.
Organizations with well managed human capital benefit from different intellectual capacities in the diverse human capital; the benefit emanates from the notion that people of different areas have different exposure that when their intellectual capacity is managed effectively, they can be of great benefit to an organization. Contemporary human resources management policies have taken the same line with customer relationship management; other than just having well managed human capital, organizations should start focusing on human resources loyalty.
Human resources loyalty means that organizations have workforces that consider the interests of their company first; when human resources are loyal to their employer, they are highly motivated to give good results to the organization. Motivation and loyalty lead to creative staff, innovative staff, and inventive staff in their respective areas; when employees are hired from the diaspora, there is a need to have an effective recruitment and selection method that will enhance superb service to customers and efficiency building in the organization.
With the team, it has come clear of the differences in motivational elements and the differences that different people have on their motivating element. Some people were more concerned with having the report delivered while others cared less about the progress of the team. The challenge that the team leader was to get the entire mind on board and have them work as a team.
While working with the team, I learned the two most important virtues, patience, and respect for others. To come to a conclusion called for patience; every member seemed to hold a different opinion and reconciling them was a challenge. A breakthrough was attained when we decided to listen to each other and positively criticize once ideas. While working with the team, I have learned that the functionality of a team is dependent on how well talents, skills, strengths, and weaknesses are combined. The optimal combination leads to orchestrated and committed teams.
Reference
Thompson, J. and Martin, F., 2010. Strategic Management: Awareness andChange. London: Cengage.