Jul 30, 2014 | Change, Governance
www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk
Last night (July 29) I watched Rod Simms (ACCC chairman) interviewed on the ABC about the price reductions consumers can expect from the removal of the carbon tax. He was assuring us that consumers will receive these benefits because in effect the ACCC had the interview transcripts and documents that confirmed prices went up as a result of the tax, therefore they will go down similarly. If not, he would use the competition powers of the ACCC to ensure businesses, particularly those on whom he “had the goods” complied.
Mr Sims has generally been a pretty good advocate for the ACCC, taking on some challenging projects, but I wonder if he really believes himself when he says this stuff.
The carbon tax has just been a corrosive component of a superficial, emotional and nasty period in our political lives, devoid of facts and intelligent debate almost anywhere. However, to say prices will just drop as a result of the removal is, even by our political masters twisted standards, like asking us to believe in Santa Claus.
Politicians have systematically and capriciously distorted the truth about the state of the economy, over the last 20 years. The source of budget problem we have is on the revenue side, stemming from income tax cuts delivered by the Howard government, rather than being all on the spending side, as eloquently outlined by Dr. John Edwards in his terrific essay published by the Lowy institute, “Beyond the boom” Not addressed by Dr Edwards is the institutional waste I see in Federal expenditures stemming from the cultural imperative never to be wrong, which ensures no risks are taken, and every tiny detail is quadruple checked and backstopped before it is passed up the line, at great cost to us all.
Australian politics is stuffed.
Very low public engagement by any measure, seemingly universal cynicism about the motives and actions of politicians and their cronies, absolute lack of intelligent debate in the House of Representatives, and mayhem in the senate. Little has changed since this December 2009 rant, but I remain an optimist.
Australians have shown a remarkable ability to absorb change, and to enable the evolution of a society unimaginable to those who authored the constitution 114 years ago, so perhaps this is all just a component of the recipe for more change.
I hope so, but it does seem that this lot have polished the political game to within an inch of its life. In a debate, you can usually count on the truth being somewhere between the starting points of the adversaries, but in our current political climate, the truth, and any facts seem to be somewhere else entirely, utterly disassociated from the discourse.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see politicians held to the same standards they impose on the rest of us in relating to misleading statements, fraudulent conduct, false advertising, and the rest?.
Whoops, stop, there is a pink, flying pig going past.
For those few who got this far, thanks, but you must have too much time on your hands if you are to indulge my rant, but thanks anyway.
Back to work, to seeking ways to assist SME’s navigate the shoals of reality, and I will not be advising them to just drop their prices by 10% of the cost of their energy, that would see most of them broke.
Jul 29, 2014 | Customers, Sales, Small business
Most of us recognise that the best sales lead you have is a satisfied existing customer, so why do SME’s so often fail to capitalise on them?.
It seems to me that there are a number of reasons, usually they boil down to not allocating the time, not thinking about it, or thinking they need some fancy CRM system beyond their means. All excuses that should not be allowed.
There are a few simple things every business should do, they should be baked into your sales and customer service processes, however simple or complicated they may be.
- Meet the promise. Make sure the sale you have just made at least meets the standards promised, much better when they exceed. Many SME’s seem to think the sales process stops at delivering the order, perhaps receiving payment, but that is just the start.
- Be visible. Make sure you are visible, and available during the delivery/installation process. This ensures that molehills do not morph into mountains.
- Ownership. Take ownership of any problems that occur, not only are the problems things that have to be solved, taking ownership of them is a powerful tool that communicates commitment to the customer, and they will not forget.
- Say Thank you. The two most powerful words in sales are: “Thank you”. Just saying them makes you feel good, and certainly it makes the buyer happy to hear them, creates an empathy, and opportunity to strengthen the relationship.
- Over-deliver value. Be more than a salesman, be a resource for the problems and opportunities that your customer faces. Send them snippets of information that they may find interesting, opportunities and ideas they may value. Not only does that keep you top of mind, it builds on the relationship, you stop being a salesman and become a contributor to their success.
- Be personal. In this day of electronic communication, email, content marketing, and all the rest, one of the oldest forms of communication works better than it ever has, just because it is different, and demonstrates you care. A snail mail thank you, personally written, stuck in an envelope, and posted will be read every time, and is guaranteed to generate a warm feeling in the receiver out of all proportion to the effort that goes into it.
Doing these things builds trust, and trust is the foundation of sales, we all know that, so why not just do it as a part of the process.
And the seventh?
When you have done all the above, and have a relationship with satisfied customers, ask them for leads, introductions and recommendations. Put yourself in this position. Someone you know, who knows a bit about you and your business rings and tells you of one of their trusted suppliers will make contact, and that they think you should talk to them.
Do you take the call when it comes? of course you do.
Jul 27, 2014 | Change, Communication, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
The single biggest stumbling block I see to successful digital marketing is not the technology, or the money, desire, or need, it is simply the unwillingness or inability to create relevant, engaging content of value that suits the context in which it is seen.
Usually it reflects a lack of a solid understanding of why they are in the business, other than to pay the bills. As Simon Sinek would say, the “Why” of the business.
Interestingly, the same stumbling block exists with bigger enterprises, they may have websites stuffed with words and pictures, but often that is all they are: words and pictures without value.
The same reasons exist for the failure in both categories.
- Lack of marketing leadership. Where marketing is seen as an expense, and customers are all those out there from whom we need to extract money. In these cases, creating content is always a barrier, and where it exists, it is usually a steaming pile of crap. Irrelevant, hard to navigate, bland, talking about themselves, yada, yada. Almost always the content improves when the customer is put as the focus of the content generation activity, answering the question “how can we better inform our market” When everybody in a business recognises that they have a marketing responsibility, you get the environment where content can be improved, and this is a leadership function, to drive the culture.
- Content is not recognised as an asset to be leveraged. Knowledge is the new currency of success, in almost every business. Those who know more, and can leverage that knowledge, find success. Knowledge management is therefore crucial and where does it reside? Between the ears of employees, stakeholders, suppliers, and often customers. When that simple fact is recognised, steps can be taken to extract the knowledge, and organise it in some way to become information of value to customers. Intellectual Capital, is knowledge that can be used, and unlike physical capital, the more it is used, the better it gets.
- No process to record and organise ideas. Content is everybody’s responsibility, but there needs to be processes in place that make it easy, and encourage the contribution of ideas and information that can be massaged into content of value. The best i have seen are a bit like the traditional sales funnel, everything that comes in , and coming in is everybody’s job, is recorded, then the ideas and information progressively filtered and organised in a process that creates value for recipients at the end. You really need an idea bank into which everyone makes deposits, and deposits are rewarded, and used to create valuable content.
- No focus on content. The old adage, what gets measured gets done, is true, if it is important, and is treated as such, it will get done. One business I work with is led by a lady who sees content as important, so she devotes a part of her considerable energy to creating it, and by that simple example has tuned the place into a content generation machine over a relatively short period, and they are getting the sales to prove it works.
- Content is marketing’s job. NO. It is everybody’s job in an enterprise to assist the customer.
- You think you know it all, and why would you tell your competitors?. When this syndrome becomes obvious it is time to leave. Most commonly I see it in other wise sophisticated technical businesses, where the history tells them that keeping information to themselves, and dolling it out to customers like a drunk offering a swig at his bottle when they ask nicely is the way to gain and keep customers. Rubbish!
- Content for contents sake. Putting up any old stuff on digital platforms is counter productive. Our digital world has given all the power to the customer, if you post rubbish, it will be seen as a reflection of the business, and who would want to do business with you?
There has been a lot written by all sorts of people on the subject of “content” and there is a lot more coming. However, there are a few simple rules that should be followed:
- Make sure whatever content you put out there is a reflection of the business, its priorities, strategies, and value proposition.
- Know who your primary customer group is, and what they are looking for in a supplier in your space
- Always look at your content with the eyes of your customer, and in the context of the competitive landscape in which you are competing for your customers attention, engagement, and ultimately, money. If your digital face is not up to scratch, why should customers trust that your products and services are any better?
I would be very happy to talk more about all this over a coffee.
Jul 23, 2014 | Customers, Marketing, Sales
www.strategyaudit.com.au
The “sales funnel” is a pretty familiar diagram, it has been around for a long time, simply because it makes sense, at least it did to sales people. To their customer prospects, there is a level of antipathy to the notion of being just a part of some “funnel”
It is time for an alternative view, one taken from the perspective of the consumer who now has all the knowledge necessary to make their own informed decisions, and they are exercising that power aggressively.
The world has changed, so too should our representations of the manner in which our marketing activities are managed, and the nature of customers and potential customers reaction to our efforts to meet their needs.
Seems to me that we would be better off thinking about the process in two funnels, one that represents our e-marketing activities, the other the way in which those messages are received.
The first is the marketing funnel, which has replaced the sales funnel, an obsolete metaphor in a digital world.
Below is my way of illustrating the new Customer purchase process.
- Need awareness. This can be either explicit, one that emerges when the consumer recognises that a purchase is necessary, such as when your printer dies, you need a new one, today! The other type of need is implicit, which is generally uncovered by a sales process, rather than by the consumer in isolation.
- Information search. Google has revolutionised this part of the process, by taking the power of information from the seller where it has been for all of human history, and giving it to the buyer. It is this point at which the marketing process now kicks in.
- Value comparison. The value equation is different for every person, in every situation, but the components are unchanged. Features, availability, warranty, design, capacity, and many others all feature in varying degrees, the means by which we communicate the bundle that makes up the value, so is common to every situation, is price.
- Purchase decision. “Yes, I will buy” thinks the consumer
- Short list. Which options meet the need, operational requirement, and value outcome needed, from which a finance decision can be made
- Transaction. The transaction can take many forms, from a simple exchange of cash for product, to all sorts of arrangements and trade-offs made between sellers, buyers and various middlemen
Whilst the whole process is usually depicted as an ordered, sequential one, in which the various marketing automation software options can provide order and flow, in reality is is usually a chaotic, messy, and iterative process.
Jul 21, 2014 | Branding, Change, Marketing, retail
It is fascinating to watch the evolution of the marketing of the two retail gorillas, Coles and Woolworths.
It is clear what they are doing, setting out to engage consumers with the freshness, range and provenance of their produce, and selling consumers all the packaged goods they need on the way through the stores. Their strategies are working, but more importantly, they highlight the depth of the opportunity for those few independent retailers left alive, and points to the way the more fragmented food service, ingredient, and emerging home delivery and farmers markets should be marketing themselves.
Coles and Woolies remain mass retailers, vulnerable on the edges.
A few years ago Woolies were undisputed heavweight champ, Coles the belted contender with no hope, but how things can change with a new trainer. Coles has been rejuvenated, and whilst their financial results have been hugely improved, they have a way to go to catch Woolies, but in the marketing stakes, they have taken the lead.
The sponsorship of “Masterchef” was a masterstroke, and they have followed up and leveraged the success extraordinarily well, with Woolies just starting to respond by buying Jamie Oliver to shape up to Heston, Curtis, and Status Quo (I was young in the 70’s) and a massive and very well co-ordinated marketing budget. Bit of an uneven contest.
From a consumers perspective, increasingly their choices are limited to brands the retailers control. Wether they be Coles new “Heston Blumenthal” brand, Woolies “Jamie Oliver” brand, or one of the various other housebrand versions at differing price-points, and pack configurations, they are all housebrands.
Suppliers of packaged proprietary brands have been progressively squeezed out, and those left are mostly sourced via global supply chains rather than manufacturing domestically, where almost nobody is left standing.
Change always starts at the fringes, as we have seen time and again over our history. Change is happening now in the food value chain, but at the fringes. Organics, local produce, micro suppliers of almost personalised products, restaurants differentiating on the basis of seasons and local supply, “pick your own” farmers markets, food tourism, various home delivery services, all happening outside the supermarket, some pretty basic marketing communicating the differentiated offer.
Jamie and Heston can take their money to beat each other up in the ad breaks of the nightly news. The increasing number of us who really care about what we eat, will go to the local blokes who genuinely care about what they deliver to us, and buy from them.
