Be Different or be dead

January 1, 2018

Why amazing marketing involves the special person not the boring masses

Source: Pexels

Why amazing marketing involves the special person not the boring masses.

Organizations produce or distribute products and services; marketers are given the challenge of creating demand for what is pumped out of the manufacturing process or handed to them from suppliers.

How do they do it?

They are victims to the method most people follow; they look for the easy way.

A way to perform their responsibilities by deploying a minimum amount of effort and hoping to achieve maximum payback.

Most marketers (my observation over 30 years) resort to applying the “one size fits all” principle; that any product can satisfy the needs of the mass market.

It’s a simple process.

Flog the product to as many potential customers as you can stressing the features and benefits believed to satisfy the “average” consumer.

And hope for a high hit rate.

This approach is a waste of time and effort.

Why?

Because there is no such thing as an average customer or a mass market! No two customers are alike in terms of their needs, wants and desires, thus this “lowest common denominator” strategy of marketing to a diluted level of demand is flawed from the outset.

Yes, it will result in some sales (where a person exhibits the demand characteristics of the masses targeted), but this hit-and-miss approach will fall short of achieving a healthy return on investment because of the many targeted individuals who don’t “look like” the mass persona and don’t respond to the offer.

It’s time for organizations to shift from the supply world to the demand world.

Where the wants of specific consumers are given precedence over what the organization produces; what the customer “covets” trumps what the product or service does.

One-size-fits-one

This requires re-vectoring the focus for marketing from a one size fits all to a one-size-fits-one philosophy where:

— products and services are targeted to a small number of potential customers whose requirements are special and unique to THEM;

— products are integrated to produce solutions having greater value than the sum of its product elements;

— “common” or “average” is purged from the marketing lexicon;

— success is measured by the number of personalized solutions created;

— the ultimate goal of segmentation is to discover as many segments of ONE as possible to understand demand at the micro personal level;

— the role of “Customer Manager” is introduced in the marketing organization to create personalized offers for discrete groups of customers; the emphasis on traditional product management is reduced;

— marketing’s primary performance metric changes from product market share to share of customer - the percentage of a customer’s total spend an organization holds.

Lazy marketing persists with one size fits all; relevant marketing in today’s world has moved to one size fits ONE.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.1.18 at 04:13 am by Roy Osing
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November 13, 2017

12 simple reasons your product is not as important as you think

12 simple reasons your product is not as important as you think.

Organizations take products too seriously.

They think products convey value and stress features, cool technology and price as the reasons why people should buy.

I think the product - centric strategy is severely flawed.

Products don’t make companies great. In a marketplace where benchmarking and best practices are relied on as the main vehicle of innovation, virtually every company in a given product space offers similar products.

The smartphone sector, for example, has a number of participants whose products, give or take, are essentially the same in terms of functionality and price.

Market participants claim that they have different features and that their prices are more attractive than others, but essentially they are all the same.

If products are relatively equal across all competitors, why are some companies awesome and others not so much?

It has little to do with products.

Rather it has everything to do with the company; the culture an organization wraps around it’s products and services; the context it provides for customers to engage with them

Uncomplicated moves

These 12 uncomplicated moves enable organizations to provide the WOW! cushion to sell their products.

1. They recruit sensitive and caring people who have an innate desire to help others rather than place all the emphasis on their academic qualifications and related experience.

2. They have friendly technology dumbed down to express the value it creates for people rather than emphasizing the coolness of what it does. Technology intimidates some; they get that and try to remove the mystique.

3. They create policies and rules to make it easy for customers to do business with them, not control the terms of engagement. They never say “It’s not our policy.”

Special promotions

4. They offer special promotions and deals first to their existing loyal customers rather than use them as an incentive to attract potential new customers. They look at special deals as a reward  for customer loyalty not as a tool to entice new customers away from their current supplier.

5. They make substantial investments in the local communities where they operate, and emphasize their employees and the amount of personal time they give to the volunteering effort.

6. They routinely communicate with customers keeping them abreast of what’s new and available to them. They don’t believe in mass communications; they personalize each message to make it as meaningful and relevant as possible to each recipient.

Customer engagement

7. They proactively reach out to their customers with lower cost product and service alternatives which could save them money over what they are currently using. Their priority is to ensure each customer has the most cost effective solution.

8. They have a fun esprit de corps culture where employees are allowed to be casual with customers. Informality puts customer engagement at ease and has them leaning in rather than leaning out.

9. They empower their service personnel to make decisions to resolve customer issues fast without the need to escalate the matter to their supervisor. They trust that their frontline will make balanced decisions that represent the needs of both the customer and the organization.

Empowerment

10. They are willing to provide advice to a customer to seek another organization’s product when they are unable to satisfy the customer’s need.

11. They have people available to take the customers call as an alternative to being managed by call answer technology. Their customer contact strategy is to make it easy for people to engage with them, not to force customers into using a tool of technology.

12. They treat their call centers as ‘loyalty centers’ with the emphasis on taking care of the customer rather than processing their call quickly. Maintaining customer loyalty is the focus, not managing costs.

People don’t buy products.

They buy the instruments of organizations they admire, respect and are comfortable with; whose ideals match their own.

Organizations that want to stimulate product sales should build the right culture and sales will take care of themselves.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 11.13.17 at 03:59 am by Roy Osing
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November 6, 2017

Why execution is the best thing remarkable leaders do

Why execution is the best thing remarkable leaders do.

What defines a remarkable leader; what single thing separates the average leader from the standout leader

There is no silver bullet to becoming a remarkable leader; rather it is the result of practising a number of little things consistently, with unrelenting commitment and passion.

But there is one role, however, if performed well, enhances leadership effectiveness and also enables a leader to stand apart from the crowd who practice their art from theory and textbooks.

Business plan execution is the key role that brilliant leaders apply most of their energy on

Great leaders are defined by their accomplishments not by their intellectual prowess alone.

A great idea that dies on paper and can’t successfully implemented defines failure regardless how clever the idea is.

How does a leader build the competence to execute that others view with awe?

They spend their time in the frontline trenches where individuals serve customers and deliver, maintain and support the organization’s products and services.

And their message to the troops isn’t a declaration of lofty intent; it’s a down-to-earth question they ask of each team member constantly: “How can I help?”.

“How can I help?” releases superlative execution because it leads to the removal of the barriers that prevent individuals from performing their roles effectively.

When there is pervasive smooth and seamless role performance, systems and procedures function well, promises to customers are consistently kept, product and service breakdowns are minimized, customer service perception is high, mistakes are reduced and rework costs are avoided.

In addition to enabling effective execution, “How can I help?” offers other key strategic benefits.

▪️It promotes quality improvement and cost reduction. Front-liners know how things should be done right the first time as well as what needs fixing.

▪️It drives innovation by pulling up and shining a light on the creative ideas of every employee and particularly frontline employees closest to the customer.

▪️It stimulates employee engagement by reaching out to people and using their ideas to make the “internal world” of the organization easier and more productive.

▪️It facilitates competitive advantage by out hustling others who are plagued with ineffective procedures and systems, dumb rules and dysfunctional execution.

▪️It leads to a reduction in employee turnover. People are less inclined to switch employers when they feel they are making a positive contribution and are valued for doing so.

One simple question.

Numerous strategic benefits.

If you’re looking for the ONE action to take to become an amazing leader like no other, start with asking the question.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 11.6.17 at 04:19 am by Roy Osing
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October 30, 2017

3 simple questions to ask to make your startup a winner

Source: Unsplash

3 simple questions to ask to make your startup a winner.

So you have an awesome idea for a new business. You think you can make a difference in the world and make tons of money like some others before you have. How should you proceed?

What do you have to do to turn your ‘brave idea’ into a ‘crude deed’?

First you need to know that the odds that you will succeed in the long run are not that great. Many studies conclude the same thing, that around 30 percent of new businesses make it to 2 years while only half are still around after 5 years.

The herd of losers is HUGE and growing.

Why do so many die?

- Economies throughout the world are volatile and unpredictable;

- Competition is super intense; new competitors enter markets at a blistering rate;

- New technology rains down relentlessly disrupting the flow of plans;

- Markets are cluttered with sameness; products and services are undifferentiated and competitive claims are lost in the crowd;

- Customers are more empowered than ever before, establishing relationships with suppliers that deliver distinctive solutions and ignoring those that don’t.

What do the survivors look like?

Those that are able to survive and win are different from their competitors.

They survive the scrutiny of the discriminating customer by providing relevant, compelling value that is unmatched by their competitors.

Those that have no distinctive identity simply don’t make it.

They die.

Answer these 3 questions and discover how you can beat the odds of long term success.

Q1. Why do many companies who have been around a while fail?

a) They cease being relevant to their customers ✅

b) They don’t advertise enough

c) Their cost structure is too high

d) Their revenues decline

They get too smug and comfortable and take their existing customers for granted.

Survivors remain relevant and invest substantial resources to stay there.

When you are up and running, never feel entitled to your current revenue stream. You have to go out and earn it every day!

Q2. What is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when starting a new business?

a) They fail to attract great sales people

b) They don’t advertise enough

c) They don’t test their idea with potential customers

d) Their business idea is not different from their competition in a way people care about ✅

Your idea must resonate with people; it must address something they care about and it must be different than anything else out there.

It’s not about gee-whiz technology and all the cool things it can do.

It’s more about captivating someone with what they can do ‘with your thing’ and that they can ONLY get it from you.

Don’t launch your new idea until it passes this test.

Q3. What is the most critical thing to look for in recruiting people to join your team?

a) The innate desire to serve other people ✅

b) Social media expertise

c) Technology skills

d) A powerful personal network

The other attributes are important, but at the end of the day successful business is about building relationships with, and caring about other people.

Ensure that the individuals you recruit have demonstrated skills and experience in helping their fellow human beings. That’s what drives amazing customer service which is a key differentiator.

Change the world by being the ONLY one that does what you do with people that love human beings.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 10.30.17 at 03:10 am by Roy Osing
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