Subscribe
Subscribe via Social
Ask an Eight-Year-Old
On a recent business trip to Boston, my eight-year-old son asked me to get him a David Ortiz jersey. (For those, not familiar with baseball, David Ortiz is the near-MVP designated hitter for the Boston Red Sox).
He states that he is a Baltimore Orioles fan, that his favorite player is Derek Jeter (shortstop for the New York Yankees); and on my trip to Boston, he wanted the jersey of a Red Sox player. What in the world?
As a kid, I would never root for, let alone wear the jersey of, a player on the arch-enemy of my favorite team. What is happening to the world, I thought. Then I realized, my son doesn’t view the world the way I do. I remember when free agency started and players began changing teams all the time. My son knows no other world. I remember when fantasy baseball (and football) could cause you to benefit when the enemy did well – my son knows no other world. My son plays Playstation baseball and built a team with (you guessed it) David Ortiz and Derek Jeter.
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who is comfortable with change. As one who embraced the world as it is – not as it was. My trip to Boston made me realize that this is not true. I am still hung up by how I remember the world working – not by how it actually does.
I realized this bias hurts businesses every day. That’s why I recommend that a business looking for growth hire an eight-year-old to consult (my son will tell you he is the vice president of Imagine). That way, you’ll be a little more in touch with how the world works these days.
Cinderella Man
I know – Cinderella Man is not a new movie. But, I’ve got two kids, a wife, a growing business; and, frankly, not a lot of time to watch movies. Yesterday, my wife took the kids to her parents house for dinner and I got some time to myself. I kicked back and watched Cinderella Man (my wife hates boxing, so she wouldn’t see it). Wow. What a great story.
While on the surface, this post has nothing to do with fast growth; the reality is (I think) it has everything to do with it. Russell Crowe is great. I’ll never forget the scene when he is at the press conference about fighting Max Baer. He says, “This time I know what I’m fighting for.” Asked what, he replied “milk.” Living through the great depression, he remembered when he was past due on his milk and couldn’t feed his children. No wonder Baer – younger, bigger, stronger, faster – couldn’t beat him.
When you remember what’s really important, no one can.
The Carnival of Marketing for June 25
I can see that the carnival is picking up in popularity as the number of submissions and the breath of content is much greater than when we hosted it about 6 weeks ago. There are a lot of great stuff out there, and it was tough narrowing our selections. Last time, we only got a couple of submissions that we were comfortable setting out there. This time we got plenty. I decided to stick with the rule of no more than 7 posts to make it more manageable for the reader.
We selected five from the submissions and two wild cards that we felt were compelling and needed to be viewed.
Jim Logan of Direct Response Marketer has some excellent insights for anyone (and that should be everyone in B2B business development) on the key components of a successful sales letter.
Mark Raynor of Search Prof posts another death knell to the world of traditional advertising. Market writes about how ads aren’t even seen.
Are product placements just traditional advertisements in disguise? Steven Silvers of Scatterbox thinks so. In The Inevitable Death of Product Placements Steven shows you why. Any marketer should read this to understand the dangers of fake authenticity.
As a fan of one page plans, I was delighted to read Becky McCray’s Small Biz Survival as she clues you into writing a simplified marketing plan.
Jason Wheeler of Marketing Is My Middle Name has a fun post that points out how paying attention and taking risk can pay off.
Fred Reichheld, one of my favorite authors, write about the use of Net Promoter Score in B2B markets. Where Does NPS Work Best? if a must read for every fast growth business.
Finally, Rob Marsh’s Brand Story has a must read piece called Making Promises. Meeting Expectations. I’m sure you’ll be interested in some of the observations made.
That’s it for this week. Let me know what you think, just e-mail me at doug@imaginellc.com. Next week, the carnival visits Influential Interactive Marketing. You can submit posts to rohit.bhargava at ogilvypr.com.
Solutions, Solutions Everywhere – But No Value To Be Found
I seem to be ranting a lot lately about words and phrases that drive me crazy. Forgive me, but I’m about to add ‘solutions’ to the list. Everybody is out there talking about their “solutions.” The problem is that most of them have no idea what the “problem” is that their solution is supposed to solve.
Let me explain something that is very basic – if there is not a problem, there can be no solution. Period. No questions or discussion. I’d like to request that all salespeople and marketers stop talking to me about how wonderful their solution is. When they talk to me this way, all they do is demonstrate that they clearly have absolutely no understanding of the problems that matter most to me.
Let’s just say, for the moment, that you sell printing ‘solutions.’ Further, let’s say that I am a prospect for your printing ‘solution.’ Let’s go out on a limb and say that I own a business development consulting company and that I both advise clients on marketing implementation and do my own marketing implementation. As a leading provider of printing ‘solutions’, you want my printing business.
Let’s be clear, no matter how bad my current situation may be – I do not (repeat, do not) have a printing problem. No matter how expensive my current printing is or how bad and ugly the current printing may be – I still do not have a printing problem.
I may have a client satisfaction problem. I may have a cost (and, therefore, a gross margin) problem. I may have a time problem or a resource allocation problem. I may have a client acquisition or growth problem. I remind you that I do not have a printing problem. Now, I may talk about my printing as a problem. I may be excited and interested to discuss my dissatisfaction with my current printing ‘solution.’ I may even buy printing from you. However, if you don’t identify, diagnose and discuss my actual (underlying) problem then you are not providing a solution, you are providing a commodity. Don’t confuse the two.
If you go to market with a solution, you better be trained and prepared to demonstrate your understanding of your client’s real problem first. I encourage you to read this about how to begin to make the transition from selling solutions to actually creating value by making client problems go away.
You’ve Got Mail (But Don’t Forget To Call)
Just because you have a technology, does not mean you should use it. Salespeople seem to be addicted to e-mail. I guess it’s easier to send an e-mail and hope that you made a point, than it is to pick up the phone and find out for sure.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand how difficult it is to get people on the phone today. I’ve had many a game of ‘phone tag.’ However, writing an e-mail is not the same as talking, even if you do get through easier.
That’s exactly why using the phone is critical. Stop using e-mail when you should use the phone. What you lose in time to contact, you’ll more than make up for in a shortened sales cycle.
The Carnival Is Coming Back
The field has been cleared. The last pieces of cotton candy have been cleaned off the furniture. The Carnival of Marketing is coming back to The Fast Growth Blog on June 26.
If you’ve written something compelling or come across something interesting please send it to carnival@imaginellc.com.
Another Buzzword to Kill
I would like to nominate another buzzword (or sentence to be more specific) for elimination. Here it is:
“We’d really like to do business with you.” (and all it’s variations)
What does that sentence mean? For those who use this, do you think prospects believe it? What else would you say? Besides, why would I care whether you want to do business with me? The question is: do you offer me something compelling that makes me want to do business with you? Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Further, the statement creates absolutely no value and, therefore, extracts value. It’s a time waster, and, worse, it tells you prospects that you don’t actually have anything compelling to say – if you did, you wouldn’t be filling air with such trivial comments.
Let’s stop using words to demonstrate our desire to do business with prospects and, instead, let’s start delivering compelling promises.
Is The Focus At Your Company Internal Or External?
I’ve written, ad nauseam, that if companies want to be successful in today’s “Wisdom Age,” they can’t afford to be internally focused – they must be focused fanatically on their customers. This thought isn’t new. Experts such as Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Jack Welch, and Clayton Christenson (to name a few) have been preaching this gospel for quite some time.
In my consulting work, I’ve learned that while there is nearly universal agreement that this customer-centered approach is a great idea, most companies don’t really get it. Far too many of them only pay lip service to focusing on their customers. They’ll start trying out a lot of customer-focused language, but in the end, they still cling to the kind of industrial-age thinking that puts the product or service (with all its wonderfully complex features and benefits) at the center of their universe.
Here is a simple question you can ask to determine whether you are internally or externally focused:
Does my company spend more time working to understand our products or working to understand the issues facing our best prospects?
If you spend more time training your salespeople on how to sell your offering than you do educating them on the business issues and challenges your prospects face, you are an internally focused organization. It will only be a matter of time before commoditization erodes your profit margins (if it hasn’t happened already).
In far too many instances, salespeople and executives are stumped when I ask them to tell me which critical business issues they impact. In my work with salespeople, I spend 75% of my time helping them understand the issues their prospects really care about.
What else can you do if you find yourself with an internal focus when what you want is an external one? Try this: At your next four sales meetings don’t spend any time talking about product/offering issues. Instead, have your salespeople interview their five best clients beforehand to find out the challenges they are facing (whether those challenges have anything to do with your offering or not). Discuss the results of those interviews at the meetings.
Bottom line, if you want your sales and marketing efforts to stimulate business, then your sales and marketing people must understand the issues that keep your prospects awake at night. By the way, the definition of “understand” is: “To know thoroughly by close contact or long experience with.” If you want to really be customer-focused, anything less than that won’t work.
Is XM Radio Selling Out?
I have been a fan of XM Radio for several years. I have to admit that, originally, when I heard about satellite radio I thought, “who in the world would pay for radio?” Then I bought a new Acura TL that came with a free 90-day subscription to XM. I fell in love with it right away. It joined the ranks of my cell phone, fax machine and TiVO – technology that I immediately could not live without.
Until today. Driving with my family I heard a commercial on what was supposed to be a commercial-free channel. Whoa, what’s going on? I thought. XM is cheating on me. Literally, that’s what I felt – that XM had lied to me. It promised me commercial-free music and selection. It was a compelling promise. I now have two cars with XM and I was getting ready to buy a portable XM player because I couldn’t stand the thought of being in a rental car this week without it.
I realize that XM needs to make money. I also realize that it was only one commercial – about 15 seconds. It doesn’t matter. XM made me a promise. I trusted them. I told my friends about them. I stood up for them. Now I feel let down.
Here’s the thing: I would have been willing to pay more if XM had kept its promise. Needless to say, I’m no longer going to be buying the portable player. I have not canceled my subscription – but I’m certainly looking at my options.
For those readers that have had the guts to make a compelling promise, don’t make this mistake. Stick to your promise. “Promises made, promises kept” is a recipe for success in the wisdom age.
Five Words to Never Use In a Sales Situation
Business week online has an excellent article, Five Words Never to Use In An Advertisement. It supports what I wrote yesterday about the word “value-added.” Make sure you read the article. Even more importantly, make sure you don’t use any of the words.
Why “Value-Added” Is No Longer Valuable
I propose terminating a popular buzzword – “value added.” Why? Because if you have to say something is ‘value added’, then it probably isn’t adding value at all. “Value” is a lot like “virtue”, and if you have to tell someone you have it, your credibility is already in question. Value is a “show-me,” not a “tell-me.”
What is “value added” anyway? It’s hype. The term is another poor remnant of the industrial age. It’s symptomatic of an offering-oriented salesmanship. It’s a seller’s term.
Think about yourself for a moment. When someone solves a problem for you, is that “value-added” or is it just “valuable”? As I’ve written before value is binary. You either create value, or you extract it. When you understand this, there is no such thing as adding value.
There are two types of value perception- fundamental and total value. In both cases, a buyer is looking to solve a problem. They don’t care whether you are ‘adding value’ or not. They only care about solving their problem. Personally, when someone talks to me about how they add value, my trust level goes down.
Let’s stop using buzzwords and jargon when we have conversations with our clients. Build your offering to solve your client’s problem and let them determine if it’s valuable or not.
Choking On Alphabet Soup
I know I’m not the first to say this: I hate companies that use initials.
I don’t know what it is, but most businesses seem to love acronyms. Everywhere I go I see people shortening everything to initials. I guess it’s a symptom of our ‘fast culture.’ Or maybe it’s just a hangover from the glory days of military jargon that introduced “RADAR,” “SCUBA” and “AWOL” into the lexicon. But these days, business people seem to fall back on acronyms more and more while communicating less and less. Show me somebody who uses an acronym to communicate a concept, and I’ll show you someone who probably didn’t take the time or have the creativity to simplify a complex idea. In a world where genuine, relevant conversations are what create value when a business speaks to its audience, this addiction to “alphabet soup” obscures meaning, causes confusion and reduces trust.
Today, I was at a business conference for financial advisors. During one marketing presentation, the speakers talked about the need to be unique, to stand out and to appeal to emotions – all valid points. Then they went on to talk about all the ‘tools’ they had to make it possible. I lost track of the number of acronyms they used, including one – RIP.
Now, you may be asking, “Hey Doug, what about IBM or ATT?” To that I say, ATT went out of business and IBM, at best, is the exception that proves the rule.
Forget the initials. Drop the acronyms. Instead, take the time to clarify complex ideas. Help your clients and prospects understand what you’re saying, instead of making them work to understand you. Talk to them like they are genuine people, then you’ll really stand out.
The Only Meaningful Marketing Metric
The summer issue of Booz, Allen, Hamilton’s Strategy + Business has some great stuff. One of the best is an article by Edward Lnadry, Andrew Tipping, and Jay Kumar, Growth Champions (registration required). In it, they give the best definition for the purpose of marketing that I have seen:
…today, they’d say it is the ability to grow a business, particularly in mature or established industries, or across an expanding base of potential customers. In an era of unlimited opportunities but constrained resources, the only marketing metric that matters is growth. Driving growth means stretching the traditional boundaries of the marketing function to encompass activities many companies don’t even think of as marketing &mdash yet.
Every company looking to accelerate its growth should keep that in mind.
-
Resources
Doug's Washington Business Journal Columns- Intelligent Growth Articles
Third Wave Selling Blog
Products to Grow
