Dec 19, 2013 | Change, Customers, Sales
Had an interesting debate at a conference a short time ago, something that I think makes a big difference, but is not usually considered, at least in my experience. The debate was the merits of pitching Vs what I call “long form selling”
Selling is a process, it takes time, effort, and involves multiple touch-points as a relationship evolves that can lead to a sale. Obviously the process varies depending on many factors, you would not expect to spend much time considering the competing merits of different paper-clips, but power stations are a bit different.
By contrast, a pitch is a yes/no equation. You get one shot, a short time, little opportunity to build rapport and points of empathy with your audience. Make or break.
In some industries pitches are the norm, nobody thinks much beyond the immediacy, they are the all there is. In others, long form selling is the norm.
Often the forms are mixed up.
Being an account executive selling to an Australian supermarket retailer is usually called “selling” but the reality is that it is just a series of pitches, with little opportunity to build a relationship much beyond knowing the other parties name and a few commercial characteristics.
Clearly, the greater the imbalance of power in the conversation, the more likely each interaction will look like a pitch. The task of the seller in that case is to take control of the conversation, and ensure it is a process, with opportunities to revisit and review, not just a once off opportunity to sell.
I know which I prefer, but I also know which focuses the mind.
Dec 5, 2013 | Change, Customers, Marketing, Sales
Some marketing activity is aimed at creating demand, alerting people to a value proposition. Other so called marketing activity is aimed at delivering an offer, an important but very different activity to demand creation.
Consider the difference between most ads on TV, and the yellow pages. The former generally sets out to tell you why you should buy something, whereas the yellow pages is a list of places where you can go to get delivery.
Which leads me to all the all the banner ads on the web, those persistent, annoying and endlessly crappy pop-ups that appear. I have just upgraded from windows XP to Windows 7 as I replaced my laptop, not wanting the leap to windows 8, just a step too far, and have not yet figured out how to avoid the apparent thousands of pop ups plaguing my screen. None are likely to get my attention beyond wanting to strangle the silly bastard who is paying somebody to disrupt me in the belief that I will react positively to the disruption.
The old laws of supply and demand still work. The supply of space into which to place a banner ad on the web is infinite, so any price is too much, and it does not work, like an ad in the yellow pages does not work to create demand, just where to get it once you have decided to buy something.
Nov 4, 2013 | Customers, Marketing, Sales, Small business
cartoon courtesy Mark Anderson
Automation of the marketing and sales “funnel” has many productivity advantages, so long as the implementation of the software works, which is always harder than the smiling assurances of the automation salespeople would indicate.
However, there is one benefit that is largely ignored that can have a significant impact, irrespective of the software implementation: the classification of leads into categories that reflect the leads individual behavior and the expected sales strategy to be implemented.
The usual process to date, encouraged by the “Sales Funnel” has assumed that all prospects travel progressively down the funnel in a consistent homogeneous manner. Clearly, nothing could be further from the truth, every situation is different.
Following is a list of the categories I have used in the past to classify prospects. They can be managed simply in a spreadsheet, or elsewhere on a continuum that ends with extreme software intervention, but irrespective of the tool, the nail still looks the same.
- Newly identified prospects, with little information.
- Leads that have been “qualified” by marketing, but sales has rejected, or failed to move ahead.
- Leads that sales has qualified as “hot” and therefore become a priority, at least in the eyes of some sales people.
- Leads that are really just contacts not ready to progress towards a sale, but with whom you need to just maintain contact.
- Contacts that need some marketing input to turn into qualified leads
- Contacts that are really just “tyre-kickers”
- Leads you have lost contact with, but who may be “restarted”
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, those who have for some reason or another dropped out of the funnel at some point, and who can be recycled back into the system.
Each of these is different, although there are grey areas between them, and each requires a tailored approach based on the history of the prospect, their role, purchase decision making power, and many other factors.
Before automation, there was little consideration of the real behavior of prospects, now, irrespective of automation, you need to be considering the sales funnel from the perspective of the “Funnellee”
Oct 25, 2013 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
Sick of the avalanche of unsolicited email coming in to your inbox? Most of us are, and my kids have reacted by virtually turning email off, and using social media to communicate with those in their circles. The volumes however, continue to go up, as email simply works as a marketing medium when done well.
Clearly, there is a “Trinity” that is evolving in marketing as the 21st century progresses.
Social media
Email
Content.
All are different, all have a place, all require different skills to be successful.
Social media is a “pull” tool, voluntary, people are free to dip in and out at their discretion. The task of the marketer is to make it interesting, engaging, and provide the reasons for people to keep on coming back.
Email is a “push” tool. Find a mailing list, and send stuff out. However, with an open rate for unsolicited emails in the low single figures, the challenge is to not just get the mail opened, but to get the recipient to do something with it.
Content is the stuff that has to be interesting, and targeted to the concerns, problems, and competitive environment of the recipient, and is glue that holds email and social media together. Neither are likely to be any good without the glue of effective content.
So, to be effective, spend lots of effort getting the right glue, then making sure you use it properly.
Oct 17, 2013 | Branding, Category, Customers, Innovation, Marketing
Cottage cheese is a pretty dull category in supermarkets. A relatively tasteless, low calorie (therefore it must taste crappy, right?), price competitive, group of products.
Yes, so we thought.
Years ago, 25 years in fact, I was the GM Marketing of a major Australian diary company with the leading brand of Cottage cheese. I thought all of the above, and we struggled to make any return, let alone one that was a competitive use of the capital tied up.
We had very good data, for the time, remembering this is pre-internet. We knew who sold our, and competitive brands in what quantities, and pretty much to whom, as we had good U&A (usage and attitude) data. As a result we were able to segment the market pretty well by usage, demographics, geography, and basket. However, whatever we did, we had trouble moving the sales needle.
Almost as a last resort, we ran a small recipe competition on the side of the packs, easy, low cost, a prize draw of a holiday at a health resort on the Gold Coast. We got a few hundred entries, a failure by our pre-agreed metrics, so we thought we knew something else that did not work. However, because there were so few, we took the time (there was a young work experience person to utilise at the time) to write back to all the entrants saying thanks for entering, and sending them a few of the top recipes we had received, just to be polite.
The response astonished us.
A very high number wrote back saying thanks for the recipes, and telling us how they used the products, what was right and wrong about them, all sorts of information we did not have, or had not thought was relevant.
Turned out, cottage cheese was not a “calorie avoidance food” it had uses in all sorts of areas by all sorts of people we had not seen as in our market, in fact, had not considered. The job we assumed was being done by cottage cheese, deduced by looking at our data, from our perspective, was not the job that consumers were hiring the product to do.
Long story short, we slowly built a database, all done by hand and snail mail, so it was a significant resource sink, a cottage cheese club in effect that shared recipes, stories, and funny events. All pretty mundane these days with the tools available, but a major undertaking in 1988.
Our sales went up, our promotional spend with retailers dropped, our price sensitivity reduced significantly, and had several successful range extensions, and we suddenly were making very good returns.
The moral is, make sure you understand the job that consumers hire your product to do, make sure you see it through the consumers eyes, not yours.
Oh, and two more lessons,
1. Social media marketing is not new, just the tools now availabel make it easier, so now everybody is doing it.
2. Cottage cheese is really very nice, 20 years after leaving the company, i still buy and use the product, in all sorts of odd ways, learnt from the “clubbies”. Brand building by another name.
Oct 14, 2013 | Collaboration, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
Question: How do you know when your enterprise has become “Social”
Answer: When it evolves from a vertical, and functionally oriented enterprise with power emanating from the position descriptions, to one that is cross functional and project oriented, and power comes from capability.
It really has little to do with the deployment of social media tools, the bring your own device policies, the # at the sales conference, or the CEO’s profile on Linkedin.
Social businesses put the customer at the centre of what they do. They set out to innovate in the manner of delivery as well as the nature of the value they deliver to consumers, and they see the future sooner, and more clearly than others, simply because they are “connected” to their customers and potential customers.
