One of the most overlooked pains in (growing) organizations is that of great performers promoted into leadership roles.
Accepting that executing and leading require two completely different sets of skills, and accompanying the transition with coaching and mentoring, would save companies a lot of money in the long run.
Three amazing books about how people make up their minds that can enhance your marketing skills.
Thinking, fast and slow – by Daniel Kahneman.
The righteous mind – by Jonathan Haidt.
Influence – by Robert Cialdini.
If you read any one of these, you’ll have a much better understanding of why talking about features and how brilliant your product is will not help you boost your sales.
There are two fundamental flaws in how companies make decisions.
The first one has to do with the amount of information available to make the decision. A balance is needed between decisions made with zero information (“based on my opinion …”, “our manager wants it this way …”, “I strongly believe …”, “it worked at my previous company …”) and decisions made in the pursue of perfect information (“I want to schedule another meeting with …”, “let’s delay this until we get to know …”, “could you please review this one more time?”).
The second one has to do with the duration of the decision taken. The world changes, the information we have available changes, the players change, technology changes. And yet, organisations find it incredibly difficult to say “we were wrong”, or even “let’s try this instead”.
Of course, the first one leads to the second. If the decision was made with zero information, it was a personal decision, and that person (and often the people close to that person) will find it very difficult to change course along the way. If the decision was made after a long process, in search for perfect information, everybody involved got so fed up with going through the details over and over again that most likely they will close an eye and pretend all is ok, rather than start back from scratch.
The trick is having the right amount of people involved in making the decision (make it three to five – never one, never ten) and well defined parameters on which the decision is taken, with checks along the way to see if any of those parameters have shifted.
In all cases, have a process.
Most people, when starting a relationship, tend to be all about themselves.
Here is what I do, here is what I think, here is where I go, here is what I like.
The hope, in this case, is to have someone on the other side of the table that finds what we have to offer interesting and that is ready to commit to it. It can happen.
The effectiveness of this approach tends to decrease as the relationship develops. And as we are not really talking about amourous relationships (though some basics are similar), even if we attempt to find more people interested and ready to commit, the self-centered tactic is clunky. Seth Godin explains it well when he compares this situation to owning a key and having to go around looking for the lock (or locks) to open.
Alternatively, we could just sit at the table and listen to what the other has to say. Understand their background, what they do, what they think, where they have been, what they like, and where they are headed. See if there’s a match, and if anything of what we’ve heard made us click, go back and continue working to make it work, until next time. In other words, finding the lock and fashion the key (always Godin).
Traditionally, the first is the way of sales and the second is the way of marketing.
I am not sure nowadays the distinction about the two departments should still be relevant (it is in many organisations, unfortunately), but certainly the difference between having the key or the lock first is fundamental when you think about going to market.
It’s the difference between being one of the many and being the only one.
Your choice.
If you play on trite stereotypes, and execute poorly, marketing can easily backfire.
When you take it off the road, on the other hand, you can have fun with it and entertain people.
It’s mainly a matter of personality.
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