Positioning Strategy: Do you choose your customer, or do they choose you?
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Nov 21, 2008
(This post began as a response to Jeff P.’s comment on an earlier post. He asked, “do you choose your customer…or do they choose you?)
“Selling benefits, not features” is a mantra that is repeated often by sales and marketing experts alike in response to those seeking marketing help. At YML, we write about it a lot. One of the YML Partners, Sonia Simone even teaches a very good course on how to sell benefits rather than features.
This concept is taught often by many for good reason. It’s good positioning strategy. None of us purchase anything because of the features of that product or service. We purchase because of what the features of that product or service does for us. More importantly - we purchase because of what we perceive the features of that product or service will do for us.
Perception, as always, is king.
To go one step further: How we think about a product or service not only drives our purchasing decisions, it also shapes our expectations about that product or service and influences how committed we are to enjoying the product or service and getting value from it.
I happen to have the perfect example of the power of desire and perception. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I decided to go to the movies. We had just finished up a tough week and were in the mood to relax and laugh. We were in the market for fun!
So, we chose a comedy that we expected to be lighthearted and funny. We’d seen funny previews for this movie and read rave reviews and fully expected to laugh and have a great time watching it. Well.. the movie was terrible. Absolutely terrible. And we knew right away that it was terrible, and we really knew halfway through that it was terrible, and we still stayed for the whole movie, which ended…. terribly.
As we were walking out of the theater, we had to ask ourselves why we stayed for the entire movie. The answer is simple. We really, really wanted it to get better. We wanted it to get better so badly that we held out hope that it might get better way past the point that rational people should.
Have you ever done the same thing? Have you ever been so determined to enjoy something or achieve something that you held on to it for way too long?
A couple important points to make about this example:
1. If you can craft a message that taps into something a group of people really, really want, they will work hard to really, really like it. If our perception is that a product or service is going to give us what we really want, we will try very hard to get what we really want out of it.
2. We weren’t really buying a movie that night. We were buying comedic relief. We were buying an escape. We were buying laughter and fun. The movie itself (the medium to deliver what we wanted) was incidental.
So - the original question was, “Do you choose your customers or do they choose you?” I have two answers.
Answer #1: They choose you - IF you have managed to be where they are, offering what they want, and can deliver.
Answer #2: You choose them - IF you first decide that you want to be the option they choose to get what they already want and shape your message accordingly.
Even better: Remember earlier when I said that “perception is king?” If the message you are communicating to your target market is in alignment with what people are already looking for, you can shape their perceptions of expecting an exceptional product or service even before they purchase from you.
BUT - your message must hit home with what they actually want (benefits) and your product or service MUST deliver what you promise.
With a well developed, relevant message you don’t have to do any of the icky parts of selling. Rather, your job is to connect and communicate and then deliver. Going back to our movie example, my husband and I were already looking for a comedy. No one had to “sell” us on wanting to watch a comedy. They just had to put something in front of us that had the potential of meeting our desire. We were sold before we bought the ticket. It took a poorly done movie to “unsell” us. And even that wasn’t easy. You have a better product. You can deliver.
So, what are your ideal customers really looking for? What do they really want? What do they really need? What are they already looking for? What do your products or services do that can deliver on those desires? Those are the benefits. Those are the hot buttons of your core message and they will have little to do with the actual features of your product or service. As long as your product or service delivers on what they really want, the actual product or service is incidental.
So here’s the big take-away: To be a successful business, don’t craft your marketing message around what’s incidental. Craft it around what is badly desired.
Customer Service is Marketing
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Oct 27, 2008
John Jantsch of Duct Tape marketing wrote on his blog the today, “Happy, educated, results oriented customers are the greatest sales force you can employ.”
I agree. In fact, I bookmarked and saved the article. For contrast, let me share an experience today that illustrates what not to do when it comes to customer service.
I signed up for an eFax account back in July. They offer 30 days to try out their service before they begin charging you a monthly fee. I didn’t use the service, so I emailed a request to have the service cancelled before the 30 days was up, and promptly forgot about it.
In looking over the last few month’s bank statements this weekend, I realized that they had been charging me for this monthly fax service for the last 3 months. I called customer service to resolve the matter, and was played a recording that instructed me to deal with this matter via live chat. I hung up the phone, logged into the eFax web site and began chatting with a customer service representative. I explained that I had sent in a request to cancel my service back in August, but was still being charged. Would he please be so kind as to cancel my account and refund the money taken from my account over the last 3 months. He replied that “refunds were not allowed.”
He then asked if I would like to keep my service for the next 2 months free of charge in order to recoup my losses.
What the @%#*????
I kindly explain that I haven’t used the service, didn’t use it during the free trial, didn’t want to keep it and don’t want it now, so why would I want to keep it another 2 months so that I could, uh, continue to not use it. Further, how would that make me feel like I had recouped my losses?
He suggested I call a customer service representative. I agreed. Before closing the chat, he asks me to clarify for him one more time that I would in fact like to cancel my service. Um, yes. Perhaps I am not being clear.
I call the number he gives me. After waiting on hold for 15 minutes, I spoke with a woman who repeats the “refunds are not allowed” mantra. I am insistent, so she places me on hold to speak with ???. She comes back and says that she can offer me a one time courtesy (refunding money for a service I didn’t want is a courtesy?) of refunding the charge in September, but I would have to call back tomorrow and talk to someone about refunding the charge in October. As for refunding August - that was out of the question. Couldn’t be done. I was still insistent. So, she said when I called back tomorrow I could ask to speak to the “higher ups.” Indeed.
Now… eFax is owned and operated by jConnect. jConnect has a lot of other useful services besides e-faxing. They offer conference calling services (we do TONS of conference calling at YML) and services that will deliver voicemail to your email and email to you phone. Any of those might have been great services to tell me about. I, in fact, didn’t even know they offered these services until I had to go searching for a customer service number this morning so that I could call and ask for October’s money back.
Unfortunately, in discovering these other services, I am not in the mood to buy.
I find the number and explain the whole incident to a new customer service rep. He again tells me that he is very sorry for the inconvenience but “refunds are not allowed”. Again, I am insistant. So, he places me on hold to talk to ??? and returns to tell me that as a one time courtesy they will refund October. As a favor.
I take a deep breath and the most polite voice I can muster, say, “I want you to refund August as well.” He says that is not allowed. I ask to speak to his manager. He says that his manager will tell me the same thing. He says he has talked with his manager and his manager cannot do a thing and so there is no point in talking with him. I say, “That’s alright. I want to talk with your manager.” He refuses to let me. This goes on a while. He never lets me talk to his manager.
Now, this is a very long story that illustrates a very simple point: Customer service is marketing.
EVERYTHING IN YOUR BUSINESS IS MARKETING.
Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with the outside world. EVERY BIT.
And back to John’s point about how happy customers are the best sales force you can employ. This also works in the reverse. If you want more customers, (hell, forget about new ones - if you simply want to keep the customers you have) train your customer service reps - train everyone who works for you or speaks for you - to be good marketers.
Why Should Customers Do Business With You?
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Oct 16, 2008
A while back I read the interesting assertion that our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time. What a simple statement. Perhaps dangerously simple, because the tendency (as is the case with most profound truths) is to briefly consider and then move on without the full impact of the statement really penetrating.
But, consider for a moment, really consider, the idea that your life’s successes or failures are the direct result of your conversations. We tend to think that we are having conversations in our relationships or about our relationships, but really - our conversations are our relationships.
This is true for all of life -including the part of life that has to do with our businesses. Our businesses are currently trotting along (or speeding along) towards success or failure on a path that is made up of the conversations that surround it. Stated more pointedly (and accurately), our conversations are not about our business. Our conversations are our business.
To clarify - by conversation, I speak very, very broadly to mean every point of contact your business has with the outside world. Further… at the center of every meaningful conversation, there is a core message that resonates somehow with those engaged in the conversation. From the standpoint of your business, that core message should communicate exactly why your business deserves to exist.
Um, not to offend, but do you know why your business deserves to exist? Not why you want it to exist, or why you think you deserve to have it exist, or why it’s important in any way to you that it continue to exist, but why the market should allow you to continue to take up space in the marketplace. This is harsh, I know, but…
if you don’t know exactly why, in the eyes of your market, your business should continue to exist (and thrive), why should your prospects and customers?
At YML we are business owners too, and currently (always) wrestling out the answer to that pestering, yet all important question, “Precisely WHY should anyone do business with us?” I mean, aren’t you clutching your wallet a bit tighter these days? Aren’t you more selective about laying down your money and thereby placing your vote for which businesses deserve to continue to exist and which one’s don’t?
At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, as a business owner or entrepreneur, going into business automatically places you in a harsh, non-forgiving, all-out competition, in which many, many businesses fall by the wayside and are forever left behind. It’s a fact that you are competing with a sea of businesses in a world that needs little else that it doesn’t already have. I mean, really, did you go into business because there was literally no one else out there offering your product or service? We are surrounded by an overabundance of choices for an overabundance of products and services.
Ah, but this doesn’t at all mean that anyone is free of problems, does it? In fact, ironically, while we are surrounded by excess (I mean, who really needs a Big Foot Garden Sculpture anyway?), we seem to have more discontent, unhappiness, stress and anxiety than ever before. We also seem to have more needs, wants and desires than ever before.
Within the motivating forces that push all of us to search for that which holds the promise of alleviating our unhappiness and fear, or filling our deepest needs, wants and desires, is your opportunity.
The market will not allow you to exist out of sympathy. The market will allow you to exist because many, many people lay down their money, thereby placing their vote for you to continue to exist. They do this because you provide something for them that they are deeply motivated to have. They don’t even need to be conscious of that motivating force. But you do. Because, your job, no matter what business you are in, is to market to them. And you do that by clearly communicating a core message that hits at the heart of whatever they are motivated to put down money to solve or have.
This is (or should be) the core message of your business. This is the meaningful part of the conversations that make up your business. This is the heart of marketing. This message should be at the heart of your marketing.
Want to know exactly how to create this all-important core message? Sign up for our FREE email course about how to answer this question better than your competition: “Why should customers do business with you?”
In this course, we will show you how to uncover the motivating factors that drive your ideal customers to buy, and then break down the process for creating a core message that will drive them to buy from you. Subscribe to this free course now.
Sales in Business: Qualifying skills
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Oct 10, 2008
I know this is a blog about marketing, but the point of marketing is to generate more sales, and it’s difficult to have enough sales without good marketing. Further, marketing all about communicating a message, which happens throughout the sales cycle (or should). So, when you are marketing, you are selling and when you are selling you are marketing.
That said, I want to share Q and A with you. The question is from a Your Marketing Lab member, and the answer is from Joyce Lillis, a Your Marketing Lab ProStaffer. Good stuff.
Question: “From the time a lead appears on the ‘radar’ screen, how many times should I contact them, and how long should I pursue the lead before letting them go? For example, sometimes leads appear to be interested even though they’re not always timely with their responses. Other times they really aren’t interested, but it’s hard to tell the difference. How do you know when you are doing a great job following up and when you are wasting your time?”
Joyce’s Response: First, when a lead appears it is important to qualify the prospective client by asking specific questions to determine if they are interested in your product/service. If you can provide one of the six “Reasons to Buy” below you will have an understanding of how you can provide a solution (VALUE) to their problem.
1. Reduce costs
2. Increase revenues
3. Leverage cost of capital
4. Increase productivity
5. Provide quality and customer satisfaction
6. Augment a new strategy or initiative
If you do not meet any of the above criteria then I would not put this prospective client on the pipeline. If you do meet one or more of the criteria above and you continue to make contact with this potential client it is important to trial close at the end of every conversation. A trial close means that there is a reason for you to follow up on a specific issue that has been determined during the conversation and allows you to move the opportunity to a closed deal.
Secondly, it is important to determine the following three reasons the potential client will buy from you.
1. A compelling reason to buy your product/service
2. Developing a business relationship with the decision maker
3. Determined there is a budget to support making a purchase
If any of the three are not determined in the beginning of the relationship, then I don’t believe there is a reason to continue to waste time with this potential client because there is a 90% chance that this is not going to become a closed deal.
Remember, to ask the hard questions. Sometimes sales people are not comfortable asking the question that allows them to make a decision to drop the lead because as sales people we are optimistic and we want to believe we can turn a lead into a closed deal. (For more about asking questions, take a look at this article: Yellow Lights)
It is important to recognize that there is always another lead that will turn into a closed deal so if any of the above cannot be determined move on to your next lead. Time is Money when you are selling.
Read more about Joyce’s upcoming course:
Qualifying and Closing Skills: Red Light/ Green Light
10 Ways to Conduct Continuous Market Research by Connecting with Your Market.
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Oct 8, 2008
10 ways to conduct continuous market research by better connecting with your market and improving your relationship marketing:
1. Start by building a relationship with a group of people you are interested in. If they are going to become your loyal fans, your audience needs to love you. However, you need to also love them. If you don’t they will know it.
2. Don’t just talk. Listen. Find out what they want. (Products are easier to find than audiences.)
3. Find out what they truly want – even compulsively need - to spend money on. There are many things they want. The real question is, what are they willing to spend money on? Further, they should have the ability (or at the very least, the strong inclination and potential near-future ability) to buy what you are selling.
4. Try to understand what is motivating their actions. What do they really want? (Sorry to complicate things, but this might not be what they say they want. I might say I want to lose 10 pounds and then order dessert. Pay attention to their behavior.) What’s their agenda? What are their goals? What are they afraid of? What problems are they dealing with? What are they running towards/ away from?
5. Be authentic. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Speak to them about them and about what they want, just be you while doing it. Capitalize on your own strengths. (For fun, read this great post by Sonia Simone at Coppyblogger, where she asks the question, “If your blog could be personified as a shapely star of a really cheesy 1960s sitcom, which would it be? Ginger, or Mary Ann?“
6. Do some research, find out what your market is interested in and study that. Subscribe to their publications, join their associations, do some keyword research, etc.
7. Recognize that your target market has no innate understanding the value of your service(s) and/or product(s). They didn’t wake up this morning with the vision that lives in your head about how your product or service can improve their lives and solve their problems. Teaching them in a way that is relevant to them is your job as a marketer. Important: “teach” rather than “preach”. You will further your connection with them while increasing the knowledge of the value you provide. Most importantly, they will not run away from you if you are really giving them good information.
8. Establish credibility. Do and say stuff that demonstrates your credibility. Associate with credible people. Do what you say and say what you mean. Then repeat. Over and over again.
9. Understand that if you try to sell before you have connected, your efforts will be largely wasted. If you do sell before you have connected, and don’t make every effort to connect after the sale, you will likely not be rewarded with a 2nd sale. And, “You don’t really have a customer until you’ve sold them twice.” - Joyce Lillis
10. Really contribute. Contribute to the conversation, contribute to their lives, contribute to their efforts. Give, not for the opportunity to get, but because you recognize that ultimately it will result in more opportunities to give.
Your Successful Small Business (Under any and all circumstances)
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Oct 7, 2008
Two important questions:
Do you have an answer ready to this question, “What are you really selling, and how will your business offering fare during hard times?” (What you think you’re selling and what your customers are really buying are likely two different things.)
Do you, as this article suggests, periodically “review and revise your plan to include everything and anything your business or startup needs during a crisis”?
If you don’t have a solid answer to the first question and answered no to the second, review your sales and marketing plans now. Get prepared.
Over-preparers take note (you know who you are): Getting prepared doesn’t have to be complicated and doesn’t require you to create fancy graphs and charts, emergency food rations, and an emergency exit plan involving the national guard. (Although, honestly, having an exit plan is just plain smart under any circumstances.) Something as simple as adding different price points can also enable you to weather an economic storm.
You could create (or recreate) a product or service (and marketing strategy) focused on marketing to the affluent. This could also involve creating (or repositioning your current product or service) a successful small business around those items that just make people feel like they are splurging. (Again - what are people really buying? Evaluate the real value of your product or serice.) After all, no matter what the economy is like, most of us will still splurge from time to time. Often, even more so when we are bummed.
Can you add value and market to a higher income demographic? (Check this out. The affluent are definitely still spending money.)
Can you add lower price points and keep customers who want to stay with you but can’t afford you right now?
You may need to completely reposition yourself. For inspiration (and just a really great story), check out this article by Larry Galler.
Regardless, get prepared. Get prepared not just to survive but to thrive. Shifts in demand are inevitable. But, there is no reason in the world why you have to be at their mercy. You can, in fact, remain in control and view times like these as rich with opportunity.
Marketing in Business and the Economy
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Oct 6, 2008
Last week I wrote a post (Right Now Might be the Best Time to Start a Business) about the advantages of starting a small business when the economy is less-than-perfect. As it turns out, eMedia Wire posted an article last week titled, Top Marketing Experts and Small Business Owners Agree There is No Recession, that makes a couple of excellent points along those same lines.
Here’s an exert from that article: “If we’re watching the news,” Lee says, “we have to ask ourselves do we really believe all these knee-jerk reactions? All we hear over and over is ‘the money is gone’ but where did it go is what we’re asking.”
Robin adds, “the thing is, the money is not gone. It’s still here, and for people who have the vision to agree that There is No Recession and to grab this opportunity, I believe we can have a repeat of what happened during the great depression where more ‘common folk’ became billionaires than any other time in our history”. “After all,” Robin adds, “what is really happening today is a correction of big business mistakes and a redistribution of wealth from THEM to US and truly there are time-proven and measured steps you can take today to make sure you take advantage of this immense opportunity that our government and big business has handed to us on a silver platter.”
Hmmmm…..
I attended a lunch meeting last week with 30 fellow entrepreneurs where the conversation sounded very much like the quotes in that article. In fact, most of the entrepreneurs at that lunch talked about how they were shifting their focus in order to best capitalize on the current economy.
Interestingly, most of them felt like this was the time to spend money, not hoard it; that right now they could indeed get the most bang for their buck and become the biggest fish in a smaller pond. (On a micro level, I say “good for them!”. On a macro-level, that’s also good for the rest of us. Those gutsy entrepreneurs are the grease that keep our economy moving no matter what.)
And where were most of them going to spend their money? On marketing their business.
An MSNBC report suggests that weathering an economic “storm” requires having a solid sales and marketing plan in place. I wonder how many small business owners and entrepreneurs have a plan in place to remain above water even in poor circumstances. Taking it one step further, how many have a plan to not just remain afloat, but to capitalize on poor circumstances. Do you?
