Leads are the Raw Materials of Selling – Manage Them!

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There is a quote in business that has been attributed to many people over the years…“Nothing happens until someone sells something” But from a sales perspective, the reality is..

“Nothing happens until you generate a lead!”

And this is just the start of the sales process and in turn, lead management process. Leads are the essence to generating revenue in business and for as long as I, and many older than me can recall, the responsibility for lead generation has always been clouded. Marketing is traditionally seen as ‘selling to the masses’ and therefore bringing opportunities to the door. Sales is seen as ‘selling to individuals’ (persons or businesses) but still with a need to generate opportunities through various means such as traditional cold calling and these days through social engagement. Regardless of where this responsibility lies (and there is a valid argument that the most successful businesses have strong collaboration between sales and marketing), the fact remains that at some point early in the sales process, a lead must be generated. However, generating leads is only the first step – to have any value to the business the leads must be appropriate and they must be managed. Leads need to be contacted, qualified and depending on the result of the qualification they then need to be removed or put into your sales process to convert them into customers. Further, once converted they need to be managed to ensure opportunities for further engagement are maximised. So, while it can be said that ‘nothing happens until you have a lead’, any lead is only of value if qualified and managed into and through your sales process. Throughout my career, as a salesman, a sales manager and consultant on sales development, this is where I see most businesses getting the sales process wrong. All too often businesses look to generate as many leads as possible and then waste time on those that are unlikely to deliver a positive return on further investment. Read more →

Getting Marketing Right Means Not Getting it Wrong.

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While having the right strategy and applying the right tactics is critical to success in any area of your business, avoiding common pitfalls is just as important.

In marketing, it is surprising how many businesses make the same mistakes and fail to learn from their past errors. Here are ten common errors I see regularly and you need to avoid: Read more →

Your Buyer’s Journey

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Today, your prospective customer may be as much as 70% into the sales cycle before they with engage you, or your competitors. How you engage with them during this time is critical

Now the role of marketing is just as much about helping your prospective clients find you as it is about you finding your prospective clients. Where you have traditionally looked for business, and how you have gone about it has changed forever. But what hasn’t changed is that people still buy from people and businesses they know, like and trust.

Getting known and building trust needs to be a critical goal of any marketing plan. You need to help educate your target market, position yourself as an expert in your field and deliver the messages that builds trust in your capabilities.

Regardless of how you define your buyer’s journey having the right communications strategy for each stage of their trip is paramount. Let’s look at a simple journey your prospect might take to become a customer: Read more →

Eating Your Young

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“Businesses that challenge established organisations are willing to ‘eat their young;’ they recognise that if they don’t someone else will whether they like it of not”…Clent Richardson, ex VP Worldwide Developer Relations & Solutions Marketing, Apple Inc.

This is a really powerful statement and those that don’t heed it will be eaten themselves. Businesses that stand still and try to protect what they’ve got will be left wondering what happened.

History is riddled with examples of organisations who failed to take advantage of opportunities for fear of cannibalising existing business. Two classic examples are:

  • Kodak, who could have had the jump on the digital camera market but were worried about losing the cash cow that was the film business
  • Sony, who were innovators in mobile music with the Walkman and should have made a huge impact in portable digital music, but could not resolve the conflict this created with their music distribution business.

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Business Strategy Consulting

Should you plan to “fail fast”?

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In a recent HBR interview, Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape, made this observation…

images-1“On the Internet, just put it up. If people hit on it, it’s a product. If they don’t, it’s market research. It didn’t cost you anything, or it didn’t cost you very much.”

This might be OK on the internet where “it doesn’t cost much”, but what about in other business?

In marketing and across all areas of business there has long been argument as to the legitimacy of the old mantra of ‘fail fast, fail often’. Many argue that failing often and failing fast minimises cost of failure and maximises the opportunity of success. Read more →

Innovation Does Not Need To Be Disruptive

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I wrote a post last week that attracted quite a bit of attention on Linked In. It related to the quote by Henry Ford that if he had asked people what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.

We all know that Ford didn’t deliver a faster horse. What he delivered was disruptive and innovative in many business fronts. But to be innovative, do you need to be disruptive? Does your innovation need to be significant to make a difference? Or can small changes make a difference?

Innovation is about ideas. These ideas can be large or small. They can come from anyone in your business, your clients or the wider market. But most importantly they need to be nurtured because ideas alone have no value – they must invoke action; practical implementation.

Innovation should become a way of doing business. It is not up to one individual or group within a business, it is everyone’s responsibility. Read more →

Marketing Consulting

What the customer wants may not be what they need.

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I have always been intrigued by this quote from Henry Ford. It challenges my approach to business every day.

images-1Isn’t Ford contradicting the basic principles of marketing that have been taught in business schools for decades?

Isn’t it the role of marketing to determine what consumers want, help businesses address these wants and position that product or service in a manner that makes the individual or business more keen to buy than we are to sell?

I still recall the morning Steve Jobs launched the iPad. I sat wondering why I would ever want (or need) something that appeared to be simply a replacement for my laptop but didn’t do everything as well and was like a big mobile phone that didn’t make calls. Wasn’t this a product looking for a market that didn’t exist? I couldn’t see a need. But now, like so many others I am a devotee of tablets. Read more →

Marketing Consulting

Keeping an Eye on Your Competitors

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Very few businesses have a monopoly, as almost any product that is worth buying or selling will generate competition. But you need to have a detailed understanding of the products and services offered by your competitors, given that strong competitors could poach some and perhaps all of your business.
A business usually strives to offer a product or service that is unique. That is the best defense against competition. Where products are not unique, they should have features that are at least distinctive or more attractive in some way.
You need to decide what basis you are competing on. Is your competitors’ packaging more attractive? Are their products better distributed and easier for consumers to obtain? Does their product do the same job at less cost? Does it come with extras? Will customers be attracted by higher service standards?

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Marketing Consulting

Can You Really Buy Customer Loyalty?

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Think about it. We receive ‘loyalty’ points by spending money with certain retailers or using specific credit cards, and in exchange for the points we accumulate get free travel and other goodies. Since nothing’s really “free” we’re actually providing the funds that are used to purchase our loyalty.
“Loyalty” is really supposed to mean fidelity, attachment and affection. It’s a lot more than just a financial relationship.
If we go back to the days of trading stamps there are many similarities to our present situation. When a place of business was the only one in its line giving away trading stamps with purchases it had a perceptible advantage over competitors and promoted this as strongly as possible.
However, the situation soon changed to being one where anybody not offering trading stamps became so disadvantaged that everyone started giving away stamps. The result was an expensive stalemate where businesses were actually afraid to drop a promotional gimmick that was costing them money and providing little or no economic benefit.
In today’s business environment there seem to be two distinct types of customers. The first type is driven exclusively by price; the second is looking for quality and value.

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Marketing Consulting

Providing Quality Customer Service

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Providing a high and consistent quality of service is a key to business success. That is because high service quality promotes customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction has a direct link to business revenue.
Advertising may win new customers, but quality service will keep them. And most businesses get between 60 and 70 percent of their income from existing customers. Customers tend to buy more the longer they have been with you, yet it becomes cheaper to deal with them. The cost of winning a new customer may be five times what it costs you to manage your relationship with an existing one.
So keeping customers is essential. But that is easier said than done. Research indicates that it may take 12 good service experiences to make up for one bad experience. That is, assuming that the customer stays around for another 12 transactions. If customers are seriously disappointed, most will simply take their business elsewhere, without telling you.
Part of providing quality service is actively seeking customer feedback and building on the relationship. One way to do this is to institute customer loyalty programs. You can use strategies such as discounts, rebates and giveaways to reward loyal customers.
A loyalty program will not only strengthen the relationship you have with your customers, it will also enable you to keep in touch with them regularly – for example by sending out newsletters or notifications of special offers.

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