Apr 19, 2012 | Customers, Strategy
Observing and working with a wide range of clients and networks over a long period, it seems to me that there are three foundations of strategy that appear time and time again, present in the successes, and absent in the failures.
- Differentiation. Clear, sustainable differentiation from competitors in a manner that customers value is the essence of strategy. Differentiation comes in many forms, superior product, service backup, design, marketing and distribution, and many activities, often seemingly mundane, but a part of the process of delivering value to customers.
- Simplicity. Successful enterprises are simple to the extent that everybody understands what they are doing, why, what role they play, and what constitutes success.
- Intellectual capital development. IC evolves from learning from mistakes and experiments, continuous improvement loops, communication feedback mechanisms, cross functional, cross company, and increasingly cross geographic collaboration and behavior. All these things create a culture, a “way we do things around here” that becomes the driver of corporate DNA evolution, and the creation of Intellectual Capital.
Strategy is probably the most commonly written about subject in management, scary to think its essence can be distilled into three simple headings.
Apr 16, 2012 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Content is the new creativity.
In the “old days” a core part of developing advertising that had brand building as its purpose, was a need to be memorable, relevant, deliver a proposition, and cut through the clutter on TV (or magazines, or radio, our only choices) all in thirty seconds. Then you repeated the message, as the common wisdom said, until you were sick of it, because the punters were only just getting to recognise it.
All that is changed, now media choices are numbered in the thousands, and you need to engage punters, one by one.
The content of the communication therefore is the still the key, but you get only one shot at it in most cases, and you rely on, perhaps pray for, the recipient to pass it on to like minded people they know.
Makes it pretty hard.
How do you market a bookshop? Common wisdom would say get really deeply into a niche with a few enthusiasts, or get out while you can, as it is all going on-line.
However, every now and again, a piece of luck comes along, that when combined with creativity and truly great understanding of what your market, wherever they are, may be looking for, you get something like this short bit of brilliance from Barter Books.
Would you go anywhere else?
Mar 27, 2012 | Customers, Sales
I walked into a retail store last week, the salesperson wandered up, big smile, “How can I help you” he said. Good start, better than the usual “Can I help?” which has as a possible answer, “No thanks, just looking”.
I told him the product category I was looking for, and he then asked “how much do you want to spend?”
Perhaps a logical next question, but the wrong one.
Why should I trust someone I do not know, whose job it is to sell me as much as possible for as much as possible, with the boundaries of my budget?
Obviously, had I said $2000, he would have shown me items at $2100, just a touch over my budget, an easy step up of just 5%, and think of all that added functionality, instead of items at $1000 that may have suited my needs just as well.
What he should have done is ask questions about what job I needed done, which features I needed, and which ones would be just nice to have, did I have brand preferences, and what about the aesthetics?
Had he done all that, he may very well have sold me the $2100 unit, and would almost certainly sold me something, and I have been pleased with the result, but as it was, I thanked him and went down the road.
And we wonder why retail sales are so flat!
Mar 14, 2012 | Customers, Marketing, Sales
Rarely does anything happen behind a desk, so why do you spend so much time there? Just like the old saying “the harder I work, the luckier I get” small business owners should say “the more customers I see, the greater chance of an order”
Most small business owners are usually specialists of some sort, they are not often sales people first, they are something else first, and it takes an effort to get out and sell.
Do the preparation, know the customer know how you can add value to his/her business, and get out there.
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 1, 2012 | Customers, Marketing
The truth of wealth creation in the gold rushes, is that it was the blokes who sold the shovels, beds, grog, and horses who got rich, not the individual miners, with the odd exception for the really lucky ones.
It is still the same.
As markets commoditise, it gets progressively more difficult to make a bob out of selling the commodity, even the least cost supplier has trouble in the long run doing better than returning the cost of capital. However, those who sell insurance, currency hedging, heavy equipment, and the like, are all doing OK, so moving up the value chain, from the front lines to the rear supply echelons, to continue the analogy in the headline, makes more sense as time passes.
