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Six Momentous Marketing and
Sales Opportunities
by John Graham
There’s never a need for more opportunities to make sales. Never.
More than enough are always available. In fact, more opportunities than
any company can handle.
“Yeah, sure. If that’s true, then why are salespeople always
looking for leads and complaining that their company isn’t doing
everything it can to help them make more sales?”
The problem is that we’re not trained to see opportunities. Even
if they jumped up and smacked us in the face, we wouldn’t feel a
thing. If they fell in our lap, we couldn’t find them.
The problem is described in a trade association magazine article in which
the readers were invited to test their marketing IQ. The test kicked off
this way: The first step in developing an effective strategy is to leverage––
a. What you do most.
b. What you do best.
c. What you do best in related services.
d. What your competition does least effectively.
e. All of the above.
According to the test’s author, the correct answer is b: An effective
strategy will leverage what you do best; your core competency.
The answer seems to make sense. We want to believe what we do best is
what the customer wants. But that’s the mistake––focusing
on the company instead of the customer.
We spend time trying to get the customer to do what we want. We’re
so enamored by what we see in the mirror, we can’t see anything
else. Just because we’re the very best at something doesn’t
mean someone needs, wants or will pay for what we’re good at.
The job of marketing and sales is not to try get the customer to bow to
our will, but to offer what intrigues the customer. In other words,
blinded by what we want, we miss the myriad of opportunities that have
the potential to increase sales.
How can we turn it around and become customer focused?
1. Overcome complacency. Without question, complacency
is the business killer. It surrounds us. It affects how we think and what
we do without us even recognizing it. Professor Jagdish Sheth of Emory
University’s Goizueta Business School lays down the gauntlet when
he says, “People end up believing what they do will succeed forever,
and then they become resistant to change. They get locked into one paradigm
or one way of life.”
When something works well, we want to believe that we have found the magic
formula and that it will work well forever. Perhaps there’s a not
so subtle component of ego mixed in with complacency.
Examples are everywhere, from the company president who must be the “expert”
on every aspect of business from selecting typefaces to toilet paper,
to the head of IBM who, in the 1970s, dismissed personal computers out
of hand because IBM’s business was mainframes.
Complacency blinds us to opportunity and kills business.
2. Never ignore inertia. Americans had a rude awakening
when they called toll-free help lines and found themselves speaking to
someone with an Indian accent. We were indignant that companies were exporting
jobs.
This tsunami isn’t just about sending jobs to low-wage nations.
It’s about inertia. At the end of “It’s a Flat World,
After All” (New York Times Magazine,April 3, 2004), Thomas
L. Friedman, refers to Bill Gates’ contention that the U.S. is falling
behind in education compared to the rest of the world, with our students
scoring near the bottom of industrialized nations.
Then Friedman drops the bomb. “When I was growing up, my parents
used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner––people
in China are starving.’ But…I am now telling my own daughters,
‘Girls, finish your homework––people in China and India
are starving for your jobs’.”
We like to believe we’re safe, that nothing can touch us. The problem
isn’t losing jobs, it’s that we fail to see that others are
overtaking us, “eating our lunch.” Friedman notes there are
folks hidden away all over the world armed with knowledge, laptops and
wireless who are taking the business.
Here’s the marketing and sales message: We are never set; nothing
stays the same. Unless we actively market with a view to the future––two,
three and five years down the road––we’re in trouble.
What’s killing sales is inertia. We dawdle around looking for the
ripe fruit, when we should be cultivating the young trees.
3. Never look back. Businesspeople like to believe they’re
visionaries, but their behavior tells a different story. They’re
in love with the past. They get excited when they’re telling
war stories! And these heroic moments are all about past glories.
The prime example of what we can call “rearview mirror thinking”
is, of course, General Motors. As the once “world’s biggest
company” heads for the precipice, it continues to follow its founders
plan: let customers graduate from a Chevy or a Pontiac, to an Oldsmobile,
Buick or LaSalle, and then to a Cadillac. Once they get started, there’s
a GM vehicle throughout their lifecycle. LaSalle disappeared 65 years
ago, Olds is gone and Buick is waiting for the plug to be pulled.
Ford’s on a similar path. But not Kia and Hyundai from South Korea.
Once rejected by U.S. car buyers, they turned it around––fast.
Today, their products win quality honors and fly out the door with powerful
guarantees that are far more compelling incentives than GM and Ford’s
deep discounts.
Looking forward beats looking backward. Learn from GM, Ford and others.
Give customers what they want and don’t hold back, or else the competition
will enjoy the fruits of your failure.
4. Create excitement. If customers today are looking
for one thing above all else, it’s excitement. That’s what
Expo and Victoria’s Secret are all about. How to be more than just
a little bit daring is the secret message. Chrysler’s PT Cruiser
continues to excite both men and women, particularly members of the Boomer
generation. “I may be getting gray but I can still act like a kid.”
Owners have genuine affection for their PT Cruisers. As one who rented
a garage for his new vehicle said in near reverential tones, “I’ve
got to take care of it.”
There’s even more of a symbiotic relationship between the Chrysler
300 owners and their vehicles, as sales exceed company projections. Once
again, the Boomers are busting down the dealership doors to get their
hands on these rakish sedans.
What’s going on here? At a time when we feel increased job pressure
and the stress of work, family, and conflicting demands, we want to lose
ourselves for awhile. These vehicles offer special excitement, letting
us fantasize each time we close the door.
Excitement sells. But as Pontiac has learned it must be more than a motto.
If you “build excitement,” you had better deliver on it.
5. Be real. When was the last time, you heard a CEO say,
“I messed up” or “I sold the company because it was
a good deal for me.” The “no-spin zones” are few and
far between. Somewhere along the line, we decided that fabrication is
preferable to honesty. This is a dangerous sport, particularly since there
are people out there on the Internet who spend their time finding ways
to trip us up.
There’s no place to hide and no cover-ups, just the illusion of
being able to get away with it. Customers who feel they’ve been
cheated or dealt with unfairly head for the Internet, a far more potent
threat than the Better Business Bureau.
The pharmaceutical industry no longer delays in pulling products; they
do it even before the FDA demands it. Stonewalling and foot dragging only
exacerbates the pain.
Failure to deliver on promises and expectations damages and destroys marketing
and sales efforts.
6. Reduce risk. Successful marketing and sales strategies
are actually ways to help customers reduce risk. A few examples,
may help clarify the idea. If a woman is convinced a particular brand
of cosmetics will make her look younger and more alluring, she uses the
products to avoid the twin risks of aging and rejection.
In the same way, an older couple buys a home in a particular retirement
community, they do so to enjoy a certain lifestyle and to avoid the risk
of missing out on it. Finally, a 33-year old professional makes substantial
contributions to a 401(k) plan to avoid the risk of not being able to
retire at age 55.
Good marketing and sales provides customers with a sense of security by
giving them what they believe is important and of value. In effect, they
reduce risk. They help us avoid what we view as negative consequences.
It may be a pair of shoes, a car, an insurance policy, or a cruise to
nowhere. If it enhances security by reducing risk, it’s the right
buying decision.
All this leads to a particular conclusion. To succeed at marketing and
sales, we need to live inside the customer’s head, to think the
customer’s thoughts and to walk the customer’s path. What
we think doesn’t count.
© 2005 Graham Communications
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John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications,
a marketing services and sales consulting firm. Mr. Graham is the
author of four books on marketing and sales, including Break the Rules
Selling: Success Strategies that Beat the Competition (Superior Books).
Mr. Graham writes for a variety of marketing and sales columns for
business and trade publications and he presents his Magnet Power presentations
at company and association meetings. He can be contacted at 40 Oval
Rd., Quincy, MA 02170; by telephone at 617-328-0069; by fax at 617-471-1504;
or by email at j_graham@grahamcomm.com. The web site is grahamcomm.com. |
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