Mar 8, 2012 | Customers, Sales
As a marketer my basic mantra has been “see it through the customers eyes”, simple and effective.
Recently while mentoring a great young sales person for a client, I noticed that even though she asked the right questions at the right time, and used the information returned to progress the sales process very well, she had less success closing than I would have expected.
On reflection, she was failing because of the language she was using.
Her language reflected that of her employer, and in it were embedded the jargon and descriptive nuances that were used to communicate a complex product amongst themselves, and it was not necessarily the language her prospects used amongst themselves. Although the differences were small, they were important, not just for the clarity of understanding that was communicated, but importantly for the comfort of the prospect, who was reassured that there was no ambiguity at play.
It became clear that in addition to the marketing mantra, there needs to be a sales one as well, “speak using the customers voice”.
By so doing, you avoid the pitfalls of the same words having slightly different meanings and implications in different contexts, and by using the customers voice back to them, you enhance the opportunity to build the rapport so important to building a relationship.
Mar 7, 2012 | Social Media
The social tools of the net do not create collaboration, that urge is hard-wired into us. The net simply removes the barriers, and changes the rules about the means.
Now we no longer have to be able to have personal “face time” be in the same geography, or even share anything beyond the single purpose of the collaboration to make collaboration work, but I am yet to see an example where the collaboration is optimised without that face to face element.
Humans are social animals, so there will never be an adequate 100% substitute for the face -to-face interaction that enables the emotional connection so important to collaboration.
SM tools offer a huge benefit to enterprises of all types, but they are not the end, just a far better means than we have had until now.
The latest offering is Pinterest, which has come from nowhere in a very short time, the early adopter crowd are figuring out how best to use it, but it is just another tool to add to the box. It has its uses, but remember the old adage that if you want to drive a nail, a screwdriver is not of much use.
Mar 6, 2012 | Innovation, Leadership
It is pretty easy to avoid making that confronting customer call, stand up and articulate an idea at odds with the boss, conduct an experiment conventional wisdom says will fail. The price for not doing this stuff is pretty low, few will critisise, but there will be little pay-off as well.
It takes intellectual bravery to confront the natural reluctance to stand out from the herd, make yourself vulnerable, be different, but without that bravery, nothing changes, and little new value creation will happen. As George Bernard Shaw said, “all great things start as blasphemies”
Mar 5, 2012 | Communication, Leadership
If you cannot state your mission in a very few words, perhaps less than 10, able to be expressed in 30 seconds, the time it takes for a ride in an elevator to the 30th floor, where the big boys live, try again.
I see many mission and purpose statements that are full of jargon and weasel words, that really convey little but the perceived need to make everybody happy, to conform to the latest fad management book, but by the time it gets to the factory floor, where it really matters, it means nothing.
To be effective, a mission statement should be a reflection of what all those in the business feel, what needs to be built, the answer to the question, “what are we doing here?”
So it is easy to wordsmith a statement, but it takes persistence, leadership, and determination to make any use of it.
Mar 2, 2012 | Change, Strategy
Will Moore’s Law, validated over nearly 50 years in digital technology development, also apply to renewable energy? This notion has interested me for a while, and it seems that currently our consumption of fossil fuel is a mirror image of Moore’s law, the challenge is to turn the thing 180 degrees so it works in our favor.
Early days, but the jury must be considering the proposition, as the development of technology starts to make an impact, even as new sources of hydrocarbons emerge, from coal seam gas, and shale oil, and may tend to ease the pressure for change in our energy mix, particularly as governments feel the fiscal pinch.
Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountains Institute has been a persuasive advocate of alternative energy, his 2005 talk on TED has been widely spread, whilst recognising that fossil fuel is the foundation of first world prosperity, and will not move aside easily, so sensible strategy accommodates the evolution of one as the other ramps up. His current treatise “A farewell to fossil fuels” is as logical and convincing as his previous jottings.
In Australia, the debate has been absolutely debased into a school-yard standard populist name calling and distortion of the facts. It is clear change is coming, every industry evolves over time, it is just that energy is so fundamental to our prosperity, and so poorly understood, and so multi-dimensional and emotional, that it makes for good pollie fodder.
