It is said that in order to test the water, you’d better wade in it yourself. So, after piles of previous sage blogs, daunting rumors and anxious waiting, my capstone finally kicks off. My client is Navis Pack & Ship, a packing and shipping company across North America, and my contact person is Mr. Sikora, the owner of Navis franchise in the tristate area. Our initial meeting was scheduled at Navis office at 2pm today. On the way close to it, I saw a plethora of shipping companies, trucks, and containers, giving me a sense of logistics and reminding me of my years of export work of dealing with international shipping agencies back in China.
My goal is to identify their problem and set my role on how to assist fixing the problem. During our two-hour meeting, our talk ranged from the star-up of this franchise back in 2006, how Mr. Sikora and his wife worked hard to knock at doors in order to win customers, to how they currently buy Google paper click to try social media marketing. I also had an opportunity to visit their workshop and witness how they operate the business. Navis is extremely professional in packing and shipping “fragile, large, awkward or valuable” stuff and in their warehouse I saw bulky and antique furniture ready to undergo Navis-way-of packing. I was told they had a special tree of packing guide and sometimes other carriers like UPS would recommend clients to go for Navis due to the unique shape of the products. Naturally the phrase “packing expert” comes into my mind.
When asked about any current problem or goal, my client said in a clear and definite way, “to double our sales”. Clearly, to increase sales is what all marketing plans end up to, and this especially holds true to small-sized companies whose biggest problem is how to survive and grow. Nevertheless, this ambitious and direct goal needs to break into several small objectives and processes, which are on my next list. When I asked about the potential budge, a prompt answer of “No” was a little bit unexpected though. After a second thought, I came to understand the situation. For any family-sized franchise company with limited budge of marketing, every penny must be spent wisely. Abiding by this principle, I should initiate steps that are easy to start and practical to follow in order to increase brand presence and win new business, and should stay away from some big dream plans like lavish spending on TV commercials which are not affordable at this stage for my client.
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