Tag: sales

When things stall

Fabrizio2 Comments

Sometimes you hit a winner.

It might be you have changed something in your routine, or you have worked more smartly and efficiently, or you have hired somebody for your team, or the situation around you changed. And things start to work. You achieve goals, you get praises, you march expedite towards the success you have defined for yourself and your organisation.

And then, it stops.

Just as suddenly as they have started, things stop working. The growth line is flat, goals are far off, the team starts raising questions and demanding change, you feel like you are a fraud and everything you have achieved so far is just a coincidence.

A common thread I found when this happens is the tendency to intensify work. You do more, you ask people around you to do more, you hire more, you grow your operations. And while doing that, you get the chance to do more of what brought you to the initial success: more marketing, more sales, more product development, more everything. Very soon, you (and your organisation) are in a frenzy state, you do not have time to think about what is happening because there’s a new urgency, you become like an unintelligent robot repeating things you did in the past expecting a different outcome. Needless to say, this rarely works.

What tends to work, instead, is taking a break. That does not mean going out of business and start anew. It means sitting with your team, looking at the fundamentals of what you are doing and see what changed. Is it the size? Is it the why? Is it the who? Where in the process did a critical shift happen that was not noticed? Is there anything that is still working? Of course, this is a process that requires awareness and openness, and hopefully you have established such an environment when things were going well (rarely those will spark in dire times). When you are done, you’ll have a new plan, that possibly will require you and your team not to do more, but to do better. Not to find more customers, but to find better customers. Not to hire more people, but to hire better people. Not to do more marketing, but to do better marketing. Not to add more processes and levels, but to act on better practices and experiences.

Be ready, because if you are lucky, you’ll have to go through the process very soon.

A better marketing culture

FabrizioLeave a comment

If you’ve worked in marketing, you have certainly experienced assembly line marketing.

That feeling all you are doing is repetition, with no real purpose or strategy, focusing on finding new ways to say old things that lost their effect long ago. Nobody really asking how you would go about solving the problem, and when finally somebody does, they also make it very clear that the urgency of the end of the month, end of the quarter, end of the year does not allow for any approach but the known, trite one.

It is a sad feeling, it’s the reason why marketers have a bad reputation, it is the place where product-focused marketing blooms. Because of course, what else should you talk about when that’s all you know and the next campaign is launching tomorrow among unrealistic expectations?

But in addition to what most of that article suggests, assembly line marketing often starts within the marketing department itself. It might still be due to external pressures, and yet assembly line marketing is a way for marketing heads and leads to keep their people busy, to avoid answering important questions, to give the impression that everyone is working hard, and eventually to keep their job.

There is a huge need for a better marketing culture, for a deeper understanding of what marketing is and can achieve. Real marketing touches hearts and builds relationships, but it takes time to plan, execute and grow. Yet, once it’s established, it cannot be unlearned or abandoned, because it’s the difference between aimless growth and change.

Don’t make it difficult

FabrizioLeave a comment

When adding complexity to a customer experience, we should ask if we do so to deliver more value or to put a patch on some insecurity of our organization.

Having customers queueing on the phone just means we are not sure we will be able to handle their questions.

Sneaking an hidden price in the service just means we are not sure people would pay for it.

Asking a question that does not change the transaction in any way when the customer is at the counter and ready to buy just means we are not sure we have enough information.

Pushing ads when the customer is seeking content just means we are not sure the customer would pay for the content alone.

Needs and wants are often fairly simple and straightforward, and it is worth the effort to attempt to meet them on the same field. On the other hand, fears and doubts are often quite layered and complex, and it is delusional to believe we can push them to the customers by keeping their experiences worth living.

Fair is out there

Fabrizio1 Comment

Who gets to decide what is “fair“?

It’s us, and we get to make that decision many times every day. When we buy something, when we read the news on Facebook, when we click for next-day delivery, when we dumb down on YouTube’s timeline, when we put a pre-cooked meal in the microwave, when we buy at a discount rather than at full price.

The problem is, we usually do not go with what is fair, as cheap and convenient are alluring. That’s fine, as long as we know that fair is out there, waiting to be picked.

Fair price

Fabrizio2 Comments

In our days and age of uninterrupted special offers, it’s worth keeping in mind few things.

Free does not exist. It’s a mirage, an oasis of opportunities where all you can actually find is mere sand. That’s why, for example, social networks are such a disappointing experience: not only they are not free to their real customers (advertisers), they are also not free for us all, for our communities, for the society. They are fake, a mirage indeed.

Cheap does exist. And yet, you have to keep in mind that somebody is paying for the missing bit. Sometimes it is the customer, in the form of poor quality. Sometimes it is the employees, in the form of poor working conditions. Sometimes it is the community, in the form of less taxes. Almost never, it is the owners.

Expensive does scare. First, because we live in a world of cheap. Second, because not necessarily the premium price prevents the risks intrinsic to cheap from manifesting. So, you might turn out with something you have paid very much for and is still poor quality, bad working conditions, low taxes.

Fair does entice. It is the result of continuous negotiation and changing scenarios. Also, it’s not only applied to monetary evaluation. As consumers, we are empowered to ask for fairer quality, fairer working conditions, fairer taxes. Also when they do not affect us firsthand. Especially when they do not affect us firsthand.

Fair is a difficult concept, and it is often overwhelmed by convenience. It is ok if we are not ready to go for it. Let’s just be mindful about what the other options imply.