Are you solving the customers real problem?

Are you solving the customers real problem?

Mar 10, 2017 | Change, Customers, Marketing

Marketers spend huge amounts of effort and money trying to define the problems they solve for their customers and potential customers. Often they fail simply because they do not understand their customers motivations sufficiently well, or they are overwhelmed by the great, world beating features the engineers have built in.

Customers do not care about your features, they only care about the outcomes for them that come with use.

There is a process that leads from the prospect being identified through to the initial transaction, then the development of a mutually beneficial relationship

At each point in that journey, in order to build the relationship, marketers have learnt that stories are by far the best way to go about it.

There appears to be three types of stories, and these are prevalent not just in marketing, but everywhere we look that stories are told. Books, movies, the theatre, and even advertisements.

External: These are the superficial obvious pieces of the narrative, but do not go to the heart of  the reasons why things are happening. The role the external story plays is that it provides the context for the real messages being delivered.

Internal: The internal parts of a story is usually all about how the protagonists feel about themselves, and those with whom they interact, how they behave under different circumstances.

Philosophical: This about the basic motivators of human behaviour, and the roles being played. Good vs Evil, Envy vs generosity,  Us vs Them, and Right Vs Wrong.

Consider the original Star Wars movie. The external story is about the development of Luke from a boy to a trainee Jedi, and the trials that are encountered as he and his acquired companions try to keep out of the clutches of the Empire.

The Internal story is about the angst and confusion felt by a boy suddenly thrust into a strange world that is trying to kill him and his companions.

The philosophical story is about the battle between good and evil, which comes to a head in the climatic fight scene.

When considering the elements that make up your brand story, remember that customers buy solutions to internal and philosophical problems, not the external ones, as they do not really matter beyond a question of price.

In other words, do not bother selling the features, sell the beneficial outcomes of use.

This works for simple products as well as it does for a complex one.

One of my clients provides a specialist engineering service to large scale manufacturing plants and infrastructure. The external story is that they do a really great job in a potentially dangerous and  highly regulated area. The internal story is about the absolute confidence that clients can have in the technical and project management skills they deliver. The philosophical story is about the need to retain some of these key skills in Australia, as once gone, like the Tassie tiger, will not come back, and the impact of that is long term and painful to us all.

 

Decision time for manufacturers of ‘disposable’ items.

Decision time for manufacturers of ‘disposable’ items.

Mar 8, 2017 | Branding, Change, Small business, Strategy

I have used the term ‘disposable’ to mean that the consumers investment is low, so purchase risk is limited. Buy one and find it does not deliver, and little is lost.

Over the weekend I had a casual conversation with an acquaintance who runs a small business selling such a line of disposable consumer products into a niche via specialist chain retailers, many branches being franchised, so are somewhat independent.

His problem is that he is being overrun by the scale of the retailers who take his ideas and have them fabricated in China under another brand at prices he is having increasing trouble matching.  In any event, they also control shelf space, so he is at their mercy.

Not an uncommon problem.

My rather glib response was that he was trying to sell to the wrong people. His current customers, the retailers, were not actually his customers, in fact they were more like adversaries. His real customers were the ones who had a need that his products fulfilled, and the retailers were just a logistical barrier to be managed and overcome.

The retailers see the only value in his products as a range they should carry as an occasional addition to the customer basket  at the cheapest price that meet their margin requirements. For them there is no investment in the success of the product, and little downside.

To the real consumers however,  the question of whether they outlay $8 or $11 for the items is largely irrelevant once the buying decision, often impulse, has been made. There is little brand awareness or preference involved, there has been only modest marketing investments made, the sales come from demonstrating the utility of  the product.

My advice: Set up an online shop, and actively market to the identifiable groups of customers who would benefit from using his products.

As he has a limited budget, and little brand recognition, this is potentially a make or break decision, not to be taken lightly.

Retailers will be even more disinclined to stock his products when they see him actively competing with them on line, but on the other hand, his sales volumes have been dropping steadily for some time, and the costs of doing business are increasing, so the end game is in sight.

The flip side is that the product is ideally suited to selling on line, the value is demonstrable, it is easily sent via the post, and the margin freed up by selling direct would be considerable.

A change of this nature would be uncomfortable, but I suggest the only way the business will continue to prosper, and have any value when the current owner decides it is time to retire.

Does yours fit the consumer definition of ‘Disposable?”

If so, what are you doing about it?

 

Why the accepted notion of ‘Brand Loyalty’ is rubbish

Why the accepted notion of ‘Brand Loyalty’ is rubbish

Mar 6, 2017 | Branding, Customers, Marketing

Brand loyalty, and one step further, finding those few  users of the brand who will use no other, and demand their networks do the same, is the holy grail of most marketing. It comes up in almost every marketing brief ever written.

However, there is almost always a flaw in the logic I see used.

Heavy and exclusive use of a brand is interpreted as brand loyalty, and occasional users are disregarded except as a possible opportunity to increase usage, if they are even picked up in the data. Consumers usually have a small pool of acceptable brands, and expect to be satisfied by the product they buy, whatever the usage, or they do not return. The brand is just one of the the filtering mechanisms of varying strength they use to make the choice easier.

While loyalty and heavy usage may be in a very few cases generated by the brand, it may also be that the heavy usage is just habit, availability, convenience, the shape of the package, or many other factors other than a behaviour changing loyalty to the brand.

Heavy usage and brand loyalty do not always have a cause and effect relationship. There is certainly a strong correlation, not necessarily causation.

My father would only use one brand of mustard powder, a blindingly hot concoction he used sparingly on an occasional sandwich. The stuff was only purchased once every blue moon, as he was the only one in the household who would go near it. Far from heavy use, but very loyal.

Conversely, if you look in my sisters fridge, there is only ever one brand of natural yogurt, and she consumes a kilo or more a week, in a number of ways. However, the choice is driven not by  the brand, although it is entirely satisfactory, but by the fact that the small supermarket she stops at every couple of days on the way home because  of the easy parking and friendly environment, to buy her milk, and a few other staples, only carries that one brand. Convenience drives the purchase, not loyalty.

Anyway, the nonsense that gets touted around by snake-oil sellers about consumers wanting to have a relationship with their brand is just so much crap it makes me sick. Brand loyalty is a rare thing, and is always, always given as a part of a whole package of value that is delivered consistently by the product to the consumer.

Consumers want a lot of things from  their favoured brands, but only a very few with some sort of emotional incapacity see a brand as a substitute for a human relationship, so lets stop talking about it as if it were.

My thanks again to Tom Fishburne.https://marketoonist.com/ When I went looking for a visual for this post, this cartoon says it perfectly.

 

4 foundation ideas for business improvement.

4 foundation ideas for business improvement.

Mar 3, 2017 | Change, Small business

Having spent many years involved in one way or another in business improvement, as you may expect, I have some thoughts.

Primary amongst them is the dismay I feel when I meet another medium sized business owner  who has had a bunch of expensive Lean or Six Sigma consultants, or now coming to the fore, ‘Agile’ consultants in their business who have achieved little beyond mouthing clichés and scraping the coffers.

All these branded and marketed improvement processes are just toolboxes that contain a set of pretty common ideas that are dressed up to sound like the next coming.

There are no silver bullets, no easy solutions to difficult problems, no template that covers even a significant amount of ground. There are just tools that can work when used in the right context by people who know what they are doing, and/or are prepared to learn as they go.

However, in the fast moving world we live in there are a few foundation disciplines that go beyond the individual tools.

Identify the problem. Improvement comes from  identifying and solving problems. The identification and articulation of the problem to be solved should be the first, and continuing priority. No improvement project I have ever seen solves just one problem, there are always a series of smaller ones when you dig deep enough.

Collaboration.  Collaboration is the core of getting things  done that  ‘stick’. In other words, they change the status quo in some way that sustains itself, becoming the new status quo. Unless change is accepted by those affected, it will simply not last.

In parallel. Sequential change takes too long, and inevitably leads to unintended consequences that do not become evident until the damage has been done. Working in parallel offers the opportunity to improve and problem solve in real time as the project proceeds. The days of sequential improvement programs are gone.

Anticipate risk. Managing risks at the beginning of a project by anticipating, and allowing for them makes way more sense than just barging in. Once you get towards the end of a project, there are sunk costs, and often corporate momentum and egos involved, all of which are very hard, sometimes impossible, to shift.

Almost 20 years ago I worked with a group of fine wool growers frustrated by being price takers. They were on the end of a long sequential supply chain that delivered them no information at all on any topic beyond the price of their greasy wool on auction day. We gathered all the processing steps from sheep to the fancy suit around a table, and turned a 2 year opaque, price driven supply chain into a collaborative demand chain that took 15 weeks from the sheeps back to the suit on the rack, and delivered better margins to all players. That collaboration is still delivering returns to growers, by solving the industry structural problems in a way that remaiins almost unique. The inventory savings made through the chain were just the cream

Cartoon credit: Tom Fishburne

How SME’s can get invaluable feedback, insight and coaching, almost for free.

How SME’s can get invaluable feedback, insight and coaching, almost for free.

Mar 1, 2017 | Collaboration, Small business

As kids, most of us told each other our secrets when we were in a safe place. In the tree-house,  in a tent in the backyard, under the house, wherever it was, we tended to open up with our fears and dreams.

It felt good to confide, to open up and get the responses from those we trusted.

As adults, being able to open up like this seems both confronting and dangerous to self image.

As business owners, it is even harder, we are never sure who will find out about our deepest commercial secrets. We also know and find really hard, is to ‘work on our business not just in it’. The most common reason is used is  ‘where do I get the time? The only answer is to make it somehow, and the rewards will be substantial.

Large enterprises have a number of options to be a part of various round tables that set out to re-create this safety felt in the tree house. Operations like The Executive Connection (TEC) do it well, putting together groups of business leaders from non competitive businesses into a regular moderated forum in which they can be coached, and encouraged by their peers and learn from each other. It requires a commitment of time as well as the finances, to both attend the meetings and to do the ‘homework’ that emerges, but I have seen spectacular results from the commitment.

For the owners of SME’s the financial and time commitment to be a part of these sort of groups is substantial, and most do not take the step. However, increasingly there are options emerging as a part of local networks of like minded and non competitive owners meeting regularly to share experiences. The value that can come from the advice and support of such a group is substantial and should not be missed.

The usual rules for constructive conversation apply. Everyone needs to be given a voice by the moderator, and there needs to be a depth to the conversation that enables both deep analysis by the group, and by its very nature, builds trust. ‘They would not have said that unless they trusted me’ and trust recieved, begets trust given

My thanks to Scott Adams for the Dilbert cartoon.