Managing and branding of products

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“ face="Times New Roman, serif">Brand

is a short-cut leading people to an informed decision,” opined

Chand Narayan, Co-founder, Value Inc Solutions. It has been noticed

especially in the urban markets that branded products sell better

than the non-branded ones, while the sales personnel has much to do

in influencing the customers decision in the purchase. It

is in this realm that the two questions about branding and managing

it through personnel, arises.


In

the first place, the consumer is focussed on the brand and its power,

while taking a purchase decision, where it is solely based on the

'brand power' of the product, while the salesman focuses to push

for the other brands. Now, in this decision, where the customer has a

definitive choice of various brands, it is natural that the brand he

purchases overrides the other brands-highlighting its superiority

for the customer. In different instance, another customer may opt for

another brand, which to him is of superior stature. In short, it is

the mindset of the consumer, which affects his decision over branded

purchases.
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“I

do not know about any other space other than IT, where competition is

so intense. How to differentiate ourselves in this competitive space

is the primary question so far,” he added, clearly pointing out the

fact of having a strong brand recall value to attract consumers.


However,

the brand is not something, which can be built in a day or two. It

takes time to establish oneself in the market with quality product

and affect the consumer's decision to buy the brand with effective

sales personnel.
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“In

the branding process, one has to remember to train people internally,

both in technical as well as in sales to push for the product. It

becomes hard when the customer arrives with a particular brand

attraction and has already made up a decision to go for a brand.

Effective training to sales people helps in influencing the

customer's decision,” he opined.


Training

the personnel and optimizing operations is just a part of the

holistic game of branding. It is not only limited to the techniques

of selling a product, but has to assure that the product itself

offers a 'promise of quality'.


While

the quality of the product remains at the sole discretion of the

product development team, what an entrepreneur can do is to ensure

that the marketing and the sales team works effectively in vouching

for the product.

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“Handling

customers is the key to ones branding success. You need to understand

the consumer's needs as well as his mindset while dealing with

him,” he concluded.