February 27, 2010

Customer Learning: Beyond Market Research

A critical component of what I call Customerized Marketing is Customer Learning: the continuous process of developing a deep understanding of the customers you have chosen to SERVE.

It’s an organic capability to be acquired in your own organization rather than one which can be outsourced to another firm. Why? Because you nurture and retain the things that will distinguish your organization from the competitive hordes, and Customer Learning is one of these ‘things’.

People often ask me what the difference is between Customer Leaning and Market Research. Here is a side-by-side comparison....

Market Research:
- evaluates the market periodically
- can be outsourced to an external firm
- is viewed as a study
- takes a snapshot of a customer at a point in time-
- takes a narrow view of the customer
- describes the ‘average’ customer
- knows little about each individual studied
- uses few segmentation variables

Customer Learning:
- is an ongoing process
- engages all employees
- is considered a core competency of the organization
- looks at the customer continually
- looks a the customer holistically
- seeks to understand very small groups of customers
- targets knowledge on individuals rather than the ‘average’ person
- uses many segmentation variables to obtain robust information on many unique customer groups

The bottom line is that there is a role for Market Research, but it won’t get you a BE DiFFERENT advantage in your market. Invest time and energy in building a Learning capability in your organization and you will be handsomely rewarded.

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs:
Customerize Your Marketing
Customerize Practice #1 Create Holistic Value Based Offers
Customerize Practice #2 Institutionalize Customer Learning
Customerize Practice #3 Discover Customer Secrets

Posted 2.27.10 at 08:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 24, 2010

Execute! Don’t Pontificate!

I recently received an e-mail from my reader that reiterated the importance of a focus on Strategy Execution. I though I would share our conversation with you.

My Reader:
“Refreshingly candid thinking on the topics of differentiation, strategy and execution. Furthermore, the writing style is very approachable, and avoids jargon that permeates much of the management consulting industry.
I especially like your thinking around a bias for action, rather than conceptualizing ad infinitum or worse, pontificating. I earned an MBA a few years ago, and we developed strategy as part of the curriculum, however did not get into strategy execution, which as you say is more important. The best ideas of men and mice, so it goes.
I am working on an initiative to get my company into cloud computing, which makes your insights timely. Here’s the thing, we need to get into the market or risk losing existing business. And we need to do it quickly. A bias for action working with a corporate culture with a bias for reviewing, careful study, concensus, wide involvement, layered management. Certainly presents a challenge to rapidly deploy.”

My Reply:
“I share your concerns when study and review dominate action! This typically happens when:
- middle management feels they need to add value to the decision-making process (and slow the progress down as a result).
- people seek more information to make the ‘perfect plan (which doesn’t exist in any event - the illusive dream).
- there is an aversion to taking risk (people may have been punished for past mistakes which makes them reluctant to step out and take a risky decision)

The bottom line is: don’t give up on this, as all organizations have this inertia challenge. The thing that separated the good ones from the great BE DiFFERENT ones is the presence of people who care enough about the company and are tenacious about pursuing the truly critical things that need to be done. And they have a passion for staying the course of progress even at their own discomfort.”

Careful review and assessment of any new venture IS important, but only to the extent that it adds to the quality of the plan and decision to be made. Catering to the egos and self-gratification of layers of management is a waste of time, resources and it could impair an effective competitive response. AND it frustrates the warriors in the organization who want to make a difference and are frustrated by the internal roadblocks they face when trying to advance meaningful programs that contribute to success and survival.

My Reader’s insights on the education system are impressive, for indeed I strongly believe formal business education needs to be bleached in the practices that have proven to work in the real world and not based solely on management theory promulgated by ‘teachers’ who have very little practical and proven experience in leading or operating a business.

BE DiFFERENT take-aways:
- Execution ALWAYS trumps excessive study and review.
- An imperfect strategy well-executed BEATS a theoretically pristine plan that can’t be implemented.
- Competitive advantage is more about SPEED than the ‘perfect plan’.
- Formal Business education needs to be RENEWED with a strong emphasis on the executional element of strategy.

Leaders….. lead! Get involved. Cleanse the internal environment of barriers to action including the people that create them. Baby steps are required to develop an action-oriented, risk taking culture. Take them NOW.

Connect with me and let me know what you think.

Cheers, Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter
Take the BE DiFFERENT Quiz

Related Blogs
Anticipate well; React Brilliantly!
Be Anal about Execution
Plan on the Run
Role of Your Strategy Document
Educator passes Judgement on BE DiFFERENT or be dead
Students need BE DiFFERENT in their Education

Posted 2.24.10 at 08:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 21, 2010

Creating Your Strategy doesn’t have to be Painful

Creating a strategy for your organization doesn’t have to be time consuming, complicated and expensive.

I have helped organizations - both for-profit and not-for-profit - get the job done in 3 days and be executing on the 4th! And, they have enjoyed the BE DiFFERENT strategy-building experience.

In addition, the BE DiFFERENT method established strategy ‘elevator speech’ . You will build not only a succinct expression of where you intend to take your organization, you will also create the platform to drive all of your communications activities.

Check out these past blogs for a roadmap that will get the job done for you and will harness the energy and intellectual capabilities of the people who really know how to plot a successful course for you.

You can’t afford NOT to have a current strategy for your organization. Contact me NOW to help you out. And join me for the BE DiFFERENT or be dead Business Growth and Survival Webinar Series where I will dive deep into this process for you.

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
HOW BIG do you want to be?
WHO do you want to SERVE
HOW will you compete and WIN?
The Strategic Game Plan

Posted 2.21.10 at 07:46 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 18, 2010

Customer Segments of 1: an Illusive Dream?

Traditional marketing has been self-absorbed in the notion of market segmentation.

The segmentation objective is to identify market clusters that exhibit similar characteristics in terms of common variables such as demographics, lifestyle, political and buying preferences, product usage behavior and so on. Once a segment with similar appropriate attributes has been identified the marketing role is to develop programs to exploit the revenue opportunity in each segment.

The assumption made in the marketing program is that each person in the segment ‘looks the same’. Each has the same demand characteristics. Each has the same needs, wants and desires.

The ‘average’ peson becomes the target and there will be sales hits when the target actually does behave like the average and there will be sales misses when they don’t look like the average person at all.

Nothing wrong with the Marketing 101 approach. But its not DiFFERENT.

Consider the following aspects of BE DiFFERENT Market Segmentation that sets it apart from the commonly-used methodology.

- BE DiFFERENT segmentation considers segmentation as a strategic exercise asking the question “How should I segment the market in order to expose as many opportunities as I can?” comon segmentation variables such as demograhics and geographics are given mild attention only: the focus is on determining the appropriate variable that will unlock the growth key for the organization.

- BE DiFFERENT segmentation is a process of segmentation that is driven by the intent to find differences in customer clusters in order to expose as many customer clusters as possible. The axiom followed is that opportunity comes from differences NOT similarities, and that the greater the number of clusters defined the more intelligence you have on every person in the cluster AND the better the ability to match a product or service with their specific needs. In other words the Customer Learning Factor increases with the number of customer clusters defined and with it the revenue opportunity.

- BE DiFFERENT segmentation, as described in the previous point tries to define as many different customer clusters as possible. The Customer Learning Factor increases as does the probability of making a sale due to the fact that you are better able to match your offering with the more precise needs. wants and desires of the individuals in each cluster.

- Finally, BE DiFFERENT segmentation is a continuous process of going deeper and deeper into a customer cluster. Obtaining more and more information on the individuals in the cluster. Looking for differences until the end result is a cluster of one. If you have one million customers, the result would be one million clusters or segments of 1.

What are the implications of a million clusters of 1?
- you would BE DiFFERENT as few would undertake the journey
- you would have deep intimate knowledge of each of your customers - Customer Learning Factor = infinity
- your sales potential would be off the charts
- you would outperform your competition
- your customers would love you - matching your solutions exactly to their needs
- you would thrive
- AND you would survive any unpredictable body blows you might suffer in an ever changing world.

All because you choose to change the way you look at Market Segmentation.

Final word. Its not really about achieving Clusters of 1 status. Its about putting in place a BE DiFFERENT marketing philosophy to treat segmentation as a continuous learning process of driving our knowledge-gathering down to the individual. If you define 1000,000 clusters of 10 are you on track? ABSOLUTELY! Keep on segmenting is the point.

Cheers, Roy Osing
Remember to follow me on Twitter
Take the BE DiFFERENT Quiz

Related blogs
Think Value Additive
Marketing is in the VALUE CREATION Business
Customerize your Marketing
Customer Learning
Customer Secrets

Posted 2.18.10 at 10:54 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)