Tag: sales

Who will listen?

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ABC is the trend-setting original German working glove, packed with innovative state-of-the-art technologies and super features.
ABC working gloves are the only one in the world to be equipped with the new and revolutionary anti-penetration material PATENTIX® – a high-tech, ultra-strong and lightweight textile felt. The material was originally developed in the United States as part of a special project for the US elite soldiers, Navy Seals, who would use bulletproof vests that were particularly lightweight and flexible.
The integrated PATENTIX® safety layer in the XYZ32 model shown, weighs only 32 grams and is thus 55% lighter compared to other textile anti-penetration layers used in working gloves. Finally a working glove without side effects! See, feel and try ABC at selected stores http://www.abc.com

Ad in airline magazine

It can be argued that the ad is not for me. That I do not belong to the target audience, as I am not a person who uses working gloves in the workplace. It can also be that people using working gloves in the workplace, or people buying working gloves to be used in the workplace, will immediately get the benefits of a working glove without side effects, and will then rush to the website and the selected stores to buy it.

And yet, there is a better way to make our audience understand what we stand for, what our product stands for. While most brands out there use the name of their products, the alphanumeric codes and acronyms of their models, the meaningless label of a registered trademark, and an endless list of pointless features, we could start by saying what all of it means to those who will have to chose between our product and all of the alternatives, and then use it day in and day out.

Sure, it takes a lot more effort. But if all we talk about is ourselves, who will listen?

P.S.: I have replaced the parts that could more directly identify the brand in the ad. Those parts are underlined.

Begin with listening

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An important reminder by Bernadette Jiwa.

If you want to be listened, begin with listening.

If you want to be heard, begin with hearing.

If you want to lead, begin with opening to the people you want to lead.

If you want to sell something, begin with understanding the people you want to sell to.

It is that easy.

Growing managers

Fabrizio1 Comment

There’s a fairly common practice in growing start-ups.

When the headcount ramps up and a more complicated structure is needed, the natural tendency is to promote founders or early stage employees into managerial roles. This happens only marginally because people making or vetting the decision believe those employees are the best for the job. Most of the time, the promotion is seen as a reward: after all, the person has been with the company when things were getting started, typically a difficult moment to be in.

There’s a problem with that, though. The skills needed to do your job are considerably different from the skills needed to have others do their jobs.

In this [new] capacity you have plenty of work to do yourself: setting strategy, hiring and firing, coaching and development, obtaining necessary resources, making certain decisions while delegating others, and embodying the culture you wish to foster.

Ed Batista

Most growing companies ignore this problem, and end up in a situation in which a hiatus develops between managers and employees. Managers are not willing to find the time to do what they are supposed to do, employees are left alone and in the blind. Eventually, one of two things will happen: growth will flatline, as managers factually act as bottlenecks; or value will be destroyed, as negative working culture spreads (think Uber).

Founders and early stage employees can (and should) still be rewarded, but if it is decided to promote them into managerial roles, the company should at least make sure they understand their new responsibilities and get appropriate training and mentoring to deliver on the expectations of their newly formed teams.

The quit stage

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Content marketing cannot just be an excuse to collect an email address.

I give you my contact because I am interested in one piece of your content. You follow up to ask if I enjoyed it, and then you start sending out regular emails I have not asked for, on topics that barely touch on my initial interest, widening the range as time goes by. And the bottom line of each of these communication is the exhortation: “buy!”.

This is not how it’s supposed to work. This is not how it’s supposed to be effective.

It’s not, because you are breaking an early relationship based on trust. I have trusted you with my contact, and you have trusted me with your piece of content. And then, what? How would you treat a human being in a face-to-face interaction, after the initial exchange of trust?

Perhaps, asking them what their interests are. Sending them something similar to what made them give you trust, and carefully see if it works. Answering their questions if they have any. Politely enquiring on what can be done to improve the relationship.

And at some point, draw the line and quit.

There must be a moment, a time, when you’ve tried enough. A moment when it’s clear it was just a temporary exchange more than a real interest. A time when sending one additional email is more damaging than not sending it.

In a world in which everything is free (only in monetary terms), we are not used to design the “quit” stage. And yet, one of the most remarkable marketing email I remember is the one of a company who did.

 

Positioning

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What does a book from the 80s have to teach to marketers today?

Let’s see.

Advertising is, for the most part, unwanted and unliked. In some cases, advertising is thoroughly detested.

[…]

In general, the mind accepts only that which matches prior knowledge or experience. Millions of dollars have been wasted trying to change minds with advertising. Once a mind is made up, it’s almost impossible to change it. Certainly not with a weak force like advertising.

[…]

as the effectiveness of advertising goes down, the use of it goes up. Not just in volume, but in the number of users.

These are some of the aspects Ries and Trout start from in their book, Positioning: how to be seen and heard in the overcrowded marketplace. And they bear quite incredible similarities to the environment marketers operate in nowadays. Almost 40 years after the book was written.

The solution to this mix of sensory overload and advertising inefficacy is positioning, the process that leads (better, should lead) companies to identify a space in the prospect’s mind and leverage it for growth and success. Contrary to common shared belief, indeed, growth and success are not in the product and its features, they are in how the audience and particularly your prospects remember and talk about you.

Not surprisingly, Ries and Trout share quite many examples of companies who did positioning right and companies who did it wrong (back in the Seventies and Eighties), and perhaps the more interesting examples are the ones the authors dedicate a full chapter each in the second half of the book. Some commonalities.

  • Find a space (“cherchez le creneau”, as they say in French) that is not taken, no matter if it is a small one, and be the first to move there.
  • To find that space, the company needs to know a whole lot of things that have very little to do with the product or service they offer: market, competitors, audience, prospects, and so on.
  • Be mindful of the importance of the name of your product or service, better if it is a name that reminds what the product or service stands for.
  • Avoid name extensions to the best of your abilities (“When a really new product comes along, it’s almost always a mistake to hang a well-known name on it“).
  • Be consistent with your positioning strategy in the long-term, particularly in times of change, when it is more beneficial to change tactics rather than strategy.

Positioning is one of those books that anybody who starts a career in marketing should read and keep close throughout their careers. It really is too easy to forget about the importance of everything that is not the product/service you are offering (competitors, environment, audience, etc.) and fall in love with words and messages that mean literally nothing to the people you seek to serve.

This is the classic mistake made by the leader. The illusion that the power of the product is derived from the power of the organization. It’s just the reverse. The power of the organization is derived from the power of the product, the position that the product owns in the prospect’s mind.