skip to Main Content

Dispel 5 Myths about Fixing Sales Today and Insure Strong Future Sales

0002-growth-graph

 

Over the last few weeks I have been discussing common myths business owners and leaders believe to be true about the fixing sales problems and how to immunize future sales performance. I recently went for my annual flu shot and the myths people in line were discussing as truths reminded me of the five main myths sales leaders need to lose to fix poor sales performance and how we can immunize future sales results. Before I can help you fix your sales problems we need to dispel the 5 myths that you may be carrying as market truths;

 

You cannot Train your way out of a sales problems alone.

 

You cannot Manage your way to improved sales alone.

 

The Economy is not the only reason for your poor sales performance alone.

 

Hiring outside help to work on your Sales Process will not hurt your current sales.

 

Just because you have Good Sales Now does not immunize you from future poor sales results.

 

What is the best way to immunize your sales performance from poor results?

 

Clean Sales Management

 

Clean Sales Management as I shared in a previous post entails being in your market on four legged sales calls with your sales team. As a reminder, you are not there to close sales but to observe buyers.

 

You need to answer;

 

Why do buyers buy from you and why don’t they?

 

What is their buyer journey today?

 

What sales process is your team using? (… if any)

 

What are common buyer personas your team is presenting?

 

What criteria are important to your buyers today?

 

When your buyers shop for a solution, where do they go, what process do they use?

 

Are there any “Spin Cycles” in your current sales process that no longer mirror how your buyers are buying today? (Spin cycle- those places in the sales process where the sale stalls, spins, or even goes dark)

 

What tools could your salespeople use to overcome or eliminate buyer Spin Cycles?

 

As a sales manager, and more so if you are the VP of Sales you have a number of activities all vying for your time and attention. Having been a VP of Sales and Marketing myself I experienced the following all pulling me like they had a gravitational power of their own;

 

Your CEO and President want answers to specific questions

 

Hitting your new sales goals

 

Hitting your profit objectives

 

Controlling expenses

 

IT wants to book SAP training and your opinion on what a CRM should do

 

A/R wants help collecting from difficult customers

 

Marketing wants your sales guys to ask their buyers …. (you fill in the blanks)

 

Forecasting

 

Cost of Quality meetings

 

Meeting with the CFO forecasting ROI and sales forecast for new products

 

HR wanting to have succession plans in place, quarterly performance reviews, performance improvement plans, and on-boarding discussions

 

Product Development wanting to know why we are not hitting new product sales

 

Meetings with Product Engineering discussing problems with their last new design

 

Product Marketing wanting to meet about why sales is not closing a higher % of leads

 

Social Media group wanting stories from the field

 

More meetings you did not even know were on the list

 

…do I need to keep typing or do you agree I have lived this?

 

If you try to do all of the above you can quickly become an “an office bound VP of sales” and this is the beginning of the death of a sales VP. The reality is you (we) need to do all of the above and more. However what keeps us employed, hitting our bonus objectives and answering the top four activities above; answering President and CEO questions strategically and timely, hitting sales goals, achieving profit objectives and controlling expenses…you need to be in the market practicing clean sales management. In your market you become aware of market changes, viruses, which can infect your sales results early and keep your team’s sales performance on plan.

Improve Sales; You Can’t Have Poor Sales Performance because of “The Economy” Alone


The first quarter of each new year often starts out as a struggle for sales teams to achieve their new goals. Your sales team has received a new and bigger goal, (there’s a high probability they missed last year’s goal) and now your team’s sales performance is poor or put another way; it is sick. When you ask your salespeople why you will often hear them rationalize  since “the economy” is bad  their sales performance is also suffering. Assuming your team’s poor sales performance to goal is solely based on a “poor economy” is like believing if you go to bed with a wet head you will wake up with the flu…it’s simply not true.

As I shared in a previous post it is not just a sales training problem, or a sales management problem it is often so much more. Before we can clearly diagnose why your sales team is experiencing poor sales performance we need to identify a squash myths your team may believe.

I was in the line at Walgreens to receive my annual flu shot and I could not help but listen as people in line shared myths that they believed to be true about the flu and the flu shot it’s self. This reminded me of the myths I have heard over the years about poor sales performance and I wanted to dispel some of the reasons people use to rationalize poor sales performance.

I remember my mother telling us kids that if we went to bed with a wet head we would wake up sick. So we made sure we completely dried our hair before we went to sleep each night. We believed this to be true so we took action based on that belief. The strange thing is we still got sick on occasion and on those nights we did go to sleep with a wet head, we did not wake up sick the next day. (our hair may have had a mind of its own in the morning but we were not sick) However now as a parent I find myself sharing this myth with my children as if it were true. If you look into and investigate this myth you find that is it simply not true. (Sorry mom)

What myths do you and your sales teams believe to be true but make no sense?

One way salespeople today are rationalizing poor sales performance is; the economy. Specifically they share that the economy is the reason why they are not achieving their sales goals. It’s a lot easier to blame external factors than to look inwardly. Blaming the economy is actually a sign your team lacks accountability and is identified as one of the five sales management blunders. What is scary to me is so many actually believe this to be true. Admittedly the economy has an impact on sales performance. With the economic conditions  we have been living in buyers have changed. As the leader of your business you must understand those buying process and buying criteria changes and adjust. If you do not one day you will wake up with sick sales and your lack of market knowledge will be showingthis is usually where the “sales hunter” becomes the hunted.

As a leader you must not accept your sales team feeling like victims to the economy and you must position them to becoming victors in your marketplace.

How is your team performing to goal?

Have any of your sales team shared: “The Economy” as the reason they cannot hit their sales goals?

When was the last time you went on four-legged sales calls to see for yourself?

Do you know why buyers buy from you? Why they don’t?

Are you practicing “clean sales management”?

Believing “The Economy” is the main reason your sales team is not achieving goal is like believing if you go to bed with a wet head you will wake up with the flu….it is simply not true. If you want to identify the truth cancel a few meetings and get out in your market and ask some questions. After about 6-8 meetings with buyers you will identify true “why’s” that are contributing to your poor sales performance and be well on your way to creating a sales improvement roadmap that will turn around your results.

Are Your Customers receiving a “Luke Warm” buying experience? …if so it’s costing you more than you know…

 

The climate for business is difficult with consumer confidence low, the access to cash tight and record unemployment. However some organizations are thriving while others know something is wrong, and they are just blaming the economy. The economy is a factor; however it may be the main “why” behind your organizations’ struggles to make numbers if your clients are receiving a “Luke Warm” buying experience. Luke warm employees create a “just enough to get by “buying experience and that simply is not cutting it in this highly competitive environment. I discussed how the buying process has changed over the last year in my post: Are you Enabling your Sales Force or Emasculating them?  With these added pressures, the last thing you want is for your clients to have a poor buying experience and seek out your competitors.

I just finished a book by Francis Chan titled; Crazy Love. It’s a book about growing your spiritual life.. In chapter four he discusses “the profile of Luke warm” and I thought how the wisdom he shares with regards to our faith life also applies in the business world. Chan describes how a Luke warm faith life is worst than being hot or cold and I feel this is also true for businesses and their employees. Specifically this is most evident in the buying experience.

What is it like to buy from your company? Are your salespeople trained and knowledgeable? Do they know how to find buyer problems and set out as if on a quest to solve them?

Or are you like most organizations who have built inside out service models and you hear executives challenged by “how our clients just are not smart enough to see the value in what we provide.” Or maybe you have downsized your sales and customer service teams and you are wondering why your business is declining and your customer satisfaction is at an all time low?

Luke warm team members produce Luke warm service levels.

The Bible discusses how being Luke warm is worst than being hot or cold and this rule also applies to your team members. I would much prefer a team member who tells me: “I just don’t get our plan and I am having a hard time getting motivated to execute my indicators” than someone who says they are on board and is just going through the motions to just get by.

As I discussed in my post: Third Part of truth …Motivation; Are You willing to go the extra mile like Chick-fil-A?  As a consumer we instantly recognize good service and an organization that has clearly set an expectation for how customers should feel in the buying process.

I need to ask…How you want your customers to feel in the process of buying your goods and or services.

Once you intentionally create this vision, you will need to identify team members who will need to be trained, and in some cases replaced.

14 warning signs a team member may be Luke warm and negatively impacting their service to internal and external customers

1.)    They do what they believe is expected of them and only what they believe is expected of them

2.)    They choose to follow Hippos, they do what is politically correct but may not be right

3.)    They are striving to survive not win

4.)    They rarely share their knowledge and experience as they use knowledge as power and not a gift

5.)    They focus on comparing their results to that of other team members versus their key performance indicators

6.)    Their actions serve themselves more than others ( customers both internal and external)

7.)    Their service is conditional, selective, and often comes with strings attached

8.)    They are focused on today and what’s in it for them today, they lack a future vision

9.)    They spend more time with their bosses than their subordinates and customers

10)    They do the bare minimum , and their goal is to be “good enough”

11)    They play it safe, they know the rules better than anyone in the organization and often site them

12)    They are visually busy, but not necessarily adding value

13)    When things go wrong they quickly blame others

14)    They seek the safety of their silo’s, and lack a “one company-one team” mentality

A half hearted commitment to the organization’s plan; mission and vision can be felt by customers. A Luke warm commitment to service disrupts your team from within and in the market if left unchecked.

If you read the above and could apply at least four of them to specific team members; employees, managers, supervisors, you now have to ask yourself a tough question;

Will I be a Luke warm leader and look the other way? Or will I take the market leader position and address poor service resulting in a bad buying experience?

 

 

 

What about your organization?

 

When you read the above did specific employees come to mind?

 

How about you, did you personally identify with any of the above?

 

How have you helped Luke warm employees become energized value adding producers again?

 

Have you experienced a loss due to not addressing a Luke warm employee and you would like to share?

 

What should you do if your boss is Luke warm?

 

 

Thank you to Francis Chan for his book; Crazy Love, as it challenged me on many levels.

Rip Off the Band Aide(s) and Position Your Business For Growth in 2010

What are you aware of that is broken in your business? You know that area, person, process, perhaps website that is not producing? It’s that area that you know you need to address, but you have tabled for now as you focus on bigger fish to fry. If you can’t admit perhaps it’s” broke”,(like a number of those who ask for my help)  let me ask you another way: What is that area that you know is just not right, but you slapped a band aide on to “get through until the business comes back to normal again”?

The reality is you will never see your business like it was unless you identify the areas that are roadblocks or worst yet broken ,and fix them.

I remember when my children were very young and when the would fall down playing and scrape a knee or elbow they did not want me to clean the minor scratch or put some medicine on it….they wanted a band aide. Band aides are magical in that once the problem is out of site they were miraculously healed. Tear filled faces became filled with smiles and the desire to get back to the play that resulted in the injury in the first place.

The difficulty came at night, before their bath when we had to remove that band aide. Back in the day, in an effort insure they did not fall off,…band aides were once glued   your skin and the removal of them caused some pain and or irritation. So what do you do? Do you slowly pull the band aide off? No, what you learned to do was to rip the band aide off quickly. Yes there is a momentary pain, but not nearly as long as trying to slowly remove it. Once the band aide is removed you can assess the true nature of the injury, clean it, and apply medicine to insure it heals and does not become infected.

As I work with a variety of companies in a number of industries I uncover band aides in a variety of areas; broken processes, people who are not adding value and should have been dealt with long ago, people in the wrong roles, websites that scare customers away instead of begin a discussion, antiquated costing systems, poor marketing, the use of old selling practices, …and the list goes on.

What I find is most leaders are aware of the problems, but quickly mentally ranked them, they performed a triage and determined what needed to be addressed immediately, soon, or something we can slap a band aide on and deal with it when the business gets back to normal. There is also some who seem to hope and pray they just go away.

The reality is you may never see the days you consider normal again.
If today is the new normal , what would you do differently moving forward?

The recommendation I give to my clients is to; reset their understanding of the market and their business. In that process we will identify band aides that were slapped on areas that needed repaired and now have become infected. The only way to determine if those broken areas miraculously healed themselves, or if they became infected and may be costing you business, is to rip them off quickly, and rip them off now.

Over the next series of posts I plan to share the process I have used to help businesses; launch new products, launch into new markets, grow in existing marketing, and rebound when they were faced with rapidly decreasing sales, profits, and market share. My commit to you is they are practical and you may even scratch your head and say “well it can’t be that easy”…the reality is; yes, it is.

I am not sure what caused it, or when it occurred , but leaders at some point decided problems were complex and therefore required complex solutions that none of us could execute if we had to … if the truth be told. The reality is when you boil problems down to their true essence there are no new problems. The problem may on the surface look or feel new, but in reality it has existed before. Identifying problems and the road blocks standing in the way of your team’s success and solving them is what we are paid to do.

How about your business…when I ask the question; what is broke and you know you need to fix it but it will be painful? …do you think about?
Are you sure the band aide you slapped on it long ago is working? How can you be sure?
Are you sure underneath that band aide you don’t have a festering infection that may spread throughout the body of your business? ( and worst spread to your customers)
Did you just address an area by “Ripping off the Band Aide”? If so please share what your learned.
Technorati Tags: grow your business profitably in 2010,profitable growth,strategic plan,problem solving,rip off the band aide,identify road blocks,what is broken in your business,sales,profit,growth

Entrepreneur Best Practices: #6 Learn To Cut Bait …early

Not all customers are good customers, and not all new business is good new business. Entrepreneurs are often faced with a dilemma; do I compromise my price, and or my service to make the cash register sing?…in these economic times I probably should right?

 

The answer is a definitive: NO.

Market leaders provide value and realize a fair value exchange from their customers.

Market losers chase every sale, and often learn to regret those they should have passed by.

When you land an account, a customer you should have “thrown back” they often bring a new set of problems;

 

They are often “time vampires”…sucking the life out of you

 

They do not value your work and will always be working you to discount what your do

 

They become service nightmares

 

They often short pay you

 

They often become a collections problem

 

Sometimes you do the work and they never pay you (I particularly hate this one)

 

 

 

…that is why we must learn how to “cut bait” and get back to fishing.

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoy fishing. I can spend hours out fishing enjoying nature and the quiet. It’s one of the few things I do that helps quiet my busy mind like church. Often times when I fish in a new fishing hole I am not familiar with… I get snags. You know …you have your bait in the water, and something takes the bait. It could be a fish, (and you hope based on how your fishing rod is bending a BIG fish) but more often than not you have a snag.

On rare occasions it actually is a large fish. One time I was convinced I must have snagged my bait on an underwater log and much to my surprise found a large cat fish on the other end of my line.

More often than not though whatever has my bait is a distraction, a snag and it is something that is taking me away from doing what I love to do…fishing and catching fish.

 

 

What we must build as entrepreneurs is the discipline to “cut bait” early and get back to fishing.

 

We often waste too much time “hoping” we have a large fish on the other end of the line when there is a high probability you have a YAFO snag.

For example, ever since my eBook about the 50 ugly truths of being an entrepreneur came out and the pod cast with the struggling entrepreneur, I have been receiving email and phone calls.

I received a call from a local financial planner whose business revenue from fees has dropped over 40% in the last year and wanted to know if my 10 step process would work for a financial planner. The answer was quickly yes as I used this process in the financial industry serving a 401k third party administrator and we quickly grew his business. Keeping with my fishing analogy, I had a nibble.

After answering his questions he asked if he could take me to lunch to learn more…I have one on the line…(I think) As we enjoyed some great Chinese food, he wanted to know my 10 steps and how it works. I explained that that is what people pay me for, however I will be happy to share some success stories I have had using this process. As we closed lunch he asked I send him a proposal and he said …”but remember I am a financial advisor and not one of those big companies you help.”

 

To a fault I love helping people, so I wrestled with a price model that would drive the growth he needed and compensate me fairly for the time I would be giving his project. I developed a program that had a modest upfront cost, a monthly retainer and an aggressive compensation for me on every new account my work landed for him.

I compromised my standard price model to help him. We went back and forth for days with emails and eventually he asked for only the small upfront fee and no compensation on the business my work would bring him or monthly retainer….and I almost took it, bur instead…

I quickly cut bait.

 

I should have cut bait even sooner as in the flurry of emails I quickly learned he was more attached to the “cost” and not the “outcome “of my work. He has been paying a coach a modest amount per month for years and thought I should match or beat this price. I asked him to read all the nice comments people I have helped in the past put on my web site, linked in, and so on. I even gave him some past customers to call….but his attachment was on cost not benefits, and he definitely did not have a strong enough desire (yet) to have his problem ( pain) solved.

Where I blew it was not cutting bait sooner. As I have shared, I just love helping people, particularly leaders with an “entrepreneurial spirit”. However after I shared my compensation model and I modified it to meet his needs that we discussed, and he “snagged” I should have cut bait earlier.

 

While you wrestle with snags other fish are swimming by…often big hungry ones.

 

Market leaders know the value of cutting bait early and getting back to fishing.

 

Market losers chase every deal and compromise their business models, products and or services and are always disappointed in the end.

 

Having reeled in my share of tree limbs in my days on the lake, you spend time that could be out casting into better waters only to reel in something that at the end of the day does not put food on your table.

 

The opportunity cost of chasing bad business is too great.

 

How about your company….

 

 

 

Do you chase every deal …compromise your model to accommodate every snag?

 

 

 

How’s that working for you?

 

 

 

Have you trained your salespeople in the value of qualifying new business early, and the power in cutting bait?

 

 

 

Are you currently struggling with what you hope is a big fish….but you know has a probability of not putting food on your table?

 

 

 

 

CUT BAIT NOW…you will thank me…

Technorati Tags: Entrepreneur best practices,entrepreneur,qualify early,cut bait,good business,bad business,bad business problems,sales,growth,add value,grow your business profitably

Entrepreneur best practice #3; If Sales are Scary, You Can NOT Afford to NOT get Creative..

Market leaders act different. They understand it’s about more than taking your customer’s money. They go out of their way to teach their clients about their products and they show their clients creative new ways to use their products or services .

Market leaders focus on the buying experience.

The net result is they deepen the bond, the trust, with their clients and their sales increase.

I needed some chlorine tablets for my pool floater so I went to Paddock Pools. I have tried a number of pool supply stores over the last eight years, but I always come back to Paddock. I could buy my tablets at Home Depot, or even Big Lots if I time running out correctly, but I prefer to pay a little more and buy my chemicals from someone who knows pools.

As I entered the store I could not help but notice a mini Haunted house to my right. I thought how cool…just like they create amazing Christmas tree displays to offset their down season sales, they also have Halloween decorations.

How smart…they created a merchandising customer experience.

As I checked out with my new bucket of chorine tablets I was asked …” Did you go inside?” I admitted the young boy still inside me wanted to, and she encouraged me to go inside and check it out. So I ducked my head and went through the cray paper streamers and went inside.

Inside there where all kinds of products merchandised to illustrate how to use them, even a spooky fireplace in the back of the room. Everything in this mini Haunted house were product’s the store sells and they showed how to use them with a little creativity.

I just had to ask the cashier how long this took to build and the cost. She said with a smile…” well we argues about how to do it for an hour, …we planned it for another, then it took two hours do when the store was slow.” I asked; “was it expensive?” …she said “no, not really.. I think we spent about $75”, (and my gut said they spent their own money and did not expense it.) I asked if I could take pictures of their handiwork and their faces just lit up with smiles.

When business is tough you must be creative. As I discussed in my post about leveraging what you have, you must assess what you have instead of doing what most struggling entrepreneurs do and that is make a list of what they need to be successful…”if we only had….we could hit our revenue numbers”.

This store, this organization, did a number of things right…

They leveraged what they had.

 

They stuck to their “flight plan

 

Created an experience and not just a floor display

 

They “showed” their clients how to use their products

 

They “taught”their clients

 

They empowered their associates to be a part of the solution

 

They recommended I check it out

 

Once inside they had a create Halloween Christmas tree, reinforcing their other seasonal products

 

If I had young children, I promise you this display would spread in their network of friends and parents would be visiting this store, or junior would make their lives miserable until they did.

 

Market leaders act differently.

They understand it’s about more than taking your customer’s money. They go out of their way to teach and show ( versus tell and sell) their clients creative new ways to use their products or services and they focus on the buying experience. The net result is they deepen the bond, the trust, with their clients and their sales increase.

How about your business….

What can you do today that is creative, but is not expensive?

How can you create a customer experience instead?

When sales are scary you must leverage what you have and get creative to; “create sales velocity”.

I plan to circle back with this Paddock store and hopefully their manager will share with me the sales this year compared to last year as a % as my guess is their seasonal Halloween merchandise sales will see an increase AND their other products will as well.

Great Job to those at Paddock Pools who built this display in the store on Shea near the 101 freeway,… if you live nearby , bring the kids and check it out!

Technorati Tags: Entrepreneur,entrepreneur best practices,bootstrapping,get creative,grow sales,buyer experience,buying experience,passion,empowered employees,create sales velocity

12 Lessons All Leaders Can Learn About Launching New Products and Services …From the 2009 Health Care Reform

Watching the current 2009 Health Care Reform Initiative has valuable lessons for all leaders throughout the world if we take time to pay attention. I think it was Einstein who said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. The current 2009 Health Care Reform Initiative has strong emotional attachments regardless of which side of the debate you reside.

It is often the life lessons with emotional attachments we remember most.

The goal of my last series of blog posts was to share business lessons leaders can learn from watching and living the 2009 Health Care Reform Initiative. I tried to focus on the business principles and not take a partisan view. If you have read any of my posts you will not be surprised to learn I am a Christian, American, and Republican….in that order. I am proud to be an American and I admit we can always improve as a nation, however having traveled the world I can say first hand how blessed I feel to live in the United States.

As for our President, I follow what our Lord taught us in the Bible and I pray for him. I pray the Lord gives him and all our leaders wisdom, discernment, and the courage to act upon what the Lord instructs him to do.( and not those of this world) I have received a number of emails since launching this blog thread. A number of those felt I was “bashing” our President, and if my word choice made you feel that way I apologize.

As a man, I have no problem with President Obama and if asked I would welcome the opportunity to be a part of the solution.

As our leader I must follow him, support him. If he loses, I lose…we all lose.

What I challenge is the process of this initiative.

My intension was to ;

“focus on the problem and not the person”

There are a number of lessons we can glean from watching life lessons before us.

I am sure there are many more lessons if thought leaders wish to add content:

  • the impact of social media on the 2009 Health Care reform Initiative

  • Lessons in leadership when a launch goes bad

  • The cost(s) of change

  • The psychology of change

  • When tempers flair seek first to understand and find common ground

  • …and I am sure there are many more

 

 

12 Lessons All Leaders Can Learn About Launching New Products and Services …From the 2009 Health Care Reform?

 

#1: Without a Clear Definition of the Problem You Want to Solve, You Will Experience “Scope Creep” and Your Launch Plan Will Fail

 

#2: Without a Clear Definition of the Problem You Want to Solve, you cannot write good requirements for your development team

 

#3: Without a Clear Understanding of the Problems to be Solved, and Requirements, Development will Build Solutions Because They Can and Not Because They Should!

 

#4: Your Previous New Product Launch success (or Failures) Affect Current and Future Launches

 

#5: Without a Clear understanding of the Problems your New Product Solves, Marketing will resort to “Buzz Word Bingo” and “Gobbledygook”

 

#6: Without a Road Map Your “Administration” Will Attempt Too Much, Too Fast and Not Achieve Any of Your Goals

 

#7: Asking…and not listening to your market, is worst than not asking at all…

 

#8; Buyers Become Tone Deaf to Lazy Marketing Messaging

 

#9; Make Sure Your Marketing Has All the “Rights” Covered…Fix the Right Problem

 

#10, #11, #12; Make Sure Your Marketing Has All the “Rights” Covered…right time, right customer, right offer

 

What other lessons have you learned, or are learning as we watch the 2009 Health Care Reform Imitative?

Is your organization making some of the same mistakes? Why?

Are you about to Launch a New Product or Service and you adjusted your plan based on the above 10 posts? If so which posts and how?

How can we unite as Americans and stop Blame Storming?

Do you feel I was wrong to use this real life emotionally charged lesson to blog about? Why, Why not?

Technorati Tags: 2009 Health Care Reform Lessons,Prodct Launch,Marketing,Market problems,strategy,blame storm,market leader,market loser,buyers,buyer problems

2009 Health Care Reform Initiative Lesson #8; Buyers Become Tone Deaf to Lazy Marketing Messaging

Marketers who build their message from within the perceived safety of their office walls create lazy marketing messages that are perceived as safe, but do not resonate in the marketplace. When marketing and their creative teams build messaging from an inside out approach, versus the market needs and problems in, they create noise and buyers learn to tune out to the noise. If you continue to violate your buyer trust with luke warm messaging that fails to explain the problems you solve for them, your buyers become tone deaf to all you’re marketing.

Scientists who have studied people who are tone deaf have found they lack specific connections in their brains. These individuals have an interruption in the synapses and thus no longer able to distinguish changes in pitch.

Your market becomes tone deaf by hearing repeated messages that do not resonate so they learn to disconnect from your product and your Brand.

The Obama administration is now in that ever so common place entrepreneurs find themselves after rushing to launch without doing the market research and connecting to buyer needs early on. When you launch products with a; Ready-Fire-Aim approach you miss your target and may actually hurt your relationships with buyers in your market.

The current administration was so focused on hitting a launch date (hasting) they compromised the needed upfront strategy work. When this occurs in your business, you launch expecting to sell 3,000 units of your new product or service and in reality you only sell 3.

Market Leaders recognize they have a problem early on, conduct win loss interviews, dive deep into their market to gain understanding (and not sell), and create learning’s.

In the Bible it talks about the sailors sending out “soundings” in the black of the night during storms at sea. What they were doing was listening for land, and more importantly rocks that could sink their ships. The Obama administration needs to be connecting to the market, and listening for soundings and not selling.

Once you learn more about your buyers, their problems, their buying process, buying criteria, and develop buyer personas, you can speak to them in a voice they hear an understand.

Market Losers just tell the same message, over and over again.( hoping this time it sticks)

Market losers are like Americans hiring taxi cabs in foreign countries…if the driver does not speak English…we just speak LOUDER!

Market Losers create Lazy messaging because they failed to do the strategy work upfront and pay in missing ROI targets and more importantly broken brand trust in their market.

If you find yourself in the middle of a storm brought on by underperforming sales to goal…

If you find your marketing team trying to convince you to spend more, have more placements and impressions, you may be dealing with a tone deaf market.

What do Market leaders do?

  • understand the value of spending time upfront in their markets

  • understand buyers and their problems

  • segment those buyers into common groups

  • create buyer persona

  • speak to their buyers in a voice that resonates

  • Constantly send out soundings in their markets, always listening…

How about your company…

Are you in a Taxi cab In Mexico City trying to speak louder in your market?

Does your team practice; Ready-Fire- Aim Product Launch?

Have you learned to become Tone deaf to the Obama administration messaging?

Is your messaging resonating with your buyers…or is it lazy marketing noise?

Can you afford to have your lazy marketing negatively affect your Brand image in the minds of your buyers?

Technorati Tags: messaging,marketing,buyer persona,market leader,market loser,obama,president obama,health care reform leasson,market problems

2009 Health Care Reform Initiative Lesson #5: Without a Clear understanding of the Problems your New Product Solves, Marketing will resort to “Buzz Word Bingo” and “Gobbledygook”

Just as marketing often throws products “over the wall” to sales, development often throws products over the wall to marketing. When marketing lacks a clear understanding of the problems your product solves, the buyers they solve them for, and a clear understanding of the criteria and process those buyers use when making buying decisions marketing resorts to “Buzz Word Bingo” in hopes that something they say sticks.

Marketing’s job is to create a story that spreads.

Or as Seth Godin states “Marketing tells a story that spreads”.

Without market knowledge and a clear understanding of the problem(s) your new product or service solves the marketing message becomes one of “Gobbledygook”.

As David Meerman Scott explains on his Blog Web Ink Now, That’s how so many PR people write — using gobbledygook-laden phrases that are so overused to have become meaningless.

 

When marketing creates buzz words and Gobbledygook it makes your market nervous as you have not clearly stated the problem(s) you solve for them, …so they assume.( and we know what happens when we are left to assume…)

One symptom your marketing story has gone astray is the need to have specific messages that address the myths in the market that have grown due to a lack of story clarity. Your marketing efforts will move away from developing a story that resonates with the market and they will produce defensive copy like: Top Five Health Care Reform Lies—and How to Fight Back.

All of the above are signs of a solution being thrown over the wall to marketing without a clear understanding of the problems your new solution solves and marketing is playing catch up. What should have been market research and testing of messages becomes surveys to validate the need. It gets really dangerous when development asks marketing to “create a need” for this new solution they just threw over the wall.

What should we all remember about creating stories that resonate in our markets so we do not have to be defensive? Cheryl Clausen helps us understand what it takes to write a good story in her blog: How to Put Life in Your Sales .

 

As you develop your short powerful story include these elements:
  • Curiosity – Incorporate unexpected things, open a loop with an incomplete thought you have to stick around to finish
  • Make it about the people who buy your stuff either explicitly or implicitly
  • Keep it logical – Stories have a plot.  Therefore, a person like the people who buy your stuff must have an urgent challenge or problem that is resolved as a result of the actions they took.

 

It does need to:
  • Speak to the right people
  • Share the right message
  • Tell your story the right way
  • Connect with people at the right time

  • Focus on the right reasons people want to act

     

If you find the market is struggling with the messages your marketing has created and its stories, what you are experiencing is your lack of market knowledge and the problems you solve is showing.

Chances are you are experiencing a Hasted effort to market without clearly understanding the unresolved market problems you were supposed to solve, your buyer personas, and an understanding of your buyer’s buying process.

You can keep trying to catch up and or defend yourself and your new product idea, or you can back up and spend time understanding the needs of your market.

You must stop telling and selling and start asking and listening.

In the process of doing so create buyer personas and speak to those personas in their voice. You must make your story specific to those most likely to buy.

When you use your understanding of your buyer personas and their voice you can create concise messages that are easy to understand and are emotional engaging.

How about your company….

Are you throwing products over the wall to marketing and they are using Buzz Word Bingo in hopes that something sticks?

Is your website full of Gobbledygook that fills a lot of white space but says nothing of value to your buyers?

Do you have to defend your solution and expose myths?

Technorati Tags: Buzz wrod bingo,Obama,Health care reform,marketing stroy,message,market

2009 Health Care Reform Initiative Lesson #3: Without a Clear Understanding of the Problems to be Solved, and Requirements, Development will Build Solutions Because They Can and Not Because They Should!

Where a number of entrepreneurs make a costly mistake is in jumping into a new product launch and making a product launch checklist  without spending an adequate amount of time gaining an intimate market knowledge and building strategy. When this occurs, developers and engineers (Representatives) build things because they can not because they should.

How do we end up with a 1,000 page bill? ( few have read, and fewer understand?) Or an ipod station and toilet paper holder? Or a laptop that smells?…. ( by design)

Without a clear understanding of the problem you want to solve, and clear requirements and not understanding who you are solving them for, you will build stuff.

Developers are creative problem solvers. They want to be given problems and requirements. They go nuts if you also tell them how to solve it. Just as salespeople hate it when accounting tries to tell them how to sell more.

The inherent problem though lays in the fact developers also see problems that are real to them, that may not be market problems. So they have their “wish list” of solutions they want to introduce.

If you lack a clear definition of the problems you want to solve and the requirements needed and just “throw a challenge over the wall” two things will happen;

1. Development will create a perceived list of problems and prioritize them themselves.

2. Without a clear direction, they will build what they always wanted to build and not necessarily what the market needs or wants.

What happens next is even more dangerous. So you have shared your “big hairy audacious goal” with your market: “A Health Care reform bill before the August break”.

Not having a connection to the problems your team will connect to something…so the August goal is clear, measureable and written so they rally to meet that goal.

The achievement of the goal date becomes more important than solving the unresolved market problem.

When this occurs your team tunes out the market and its needs and tunes into the leaders goal ( and often ego).

Teams aligned around the wrong goal “tell and sell” versus “teach and share the problems they solved” and markets often rebel.

Buyers like to buy; they do not like to be sold.

With the power of social media, and the lack of alignment to the correct goal, a solution can launch and die within hours.

Market leaders understand the value in spending the time upfront, clearly defining the problem(s) they want to solve and developing requirements that set their developers up to win, and ultimately add value to the bottom line of the organization.

Market Losers are so focused on a delivery goal they Haste, and they waste. Focus on the wrong goal results in their team members thrashing around, starting and stopping and not able to develop revolutionary solutions that the market willing buys.

 

How about your organization….

 

Does your team throw things over the wall?

 

Do your developers ask for more information and the prioritization of requirements, or do they assume they know.

 

Has your company launched something because you could and not because you should? ….How’s that working for you?

Technorati Tags: requirements,market leader,market loser,throwing things over the wall,marketing,product development,launch,new product launch,build products your market wants to buy
Back To Top
Verified by MonsterInsights