Archives for category: Customers

Karma

March 16, 2016 //

I’m not a religious person, so I don’t really hold much with divine direction.

I do believe in karma, however, the kind where spiritual credits and debits are in operation. Over the course of a life, these pretty much even out I think. If you do good, life pays you back with good. If you do bad, at the expense of others, then a big piece of bad will probably even the score.

I was reminded of this the other day when my good lady and I were at a fun-raising pub quiz night. As it turned out, our team won the quiz, and we were presented with a very bag of generous goodies each, including money. We gave half the money back as a prize for the raffle. We then promptly won 2 prizes in the raffle. Score one for the nice guys.

There was a table next to us, with a coupe of older folk and their kids. They didn’t win anything in the raffle, despite having bought quite a few tickets for quite a few prizes. We gave them one of our goodie bags and were preparing to head off.

Then, over the loud speakers our hostess explained that she had forgotten one of the really good prizes, and so there was to be one more draw, for a new smartphone. ‘Ooh,’ said Mrs D, ‘I need a new smartphone.’

You can guess the rest. Score two for the nice guys.

Karma, paying it forward, call it what you will. Be nice, it works.

Tags Fate, Karma

Categories Communication, Customers, General

There Are No Competitors

March 11, 2016 //

“There are no competitors”. I used to be fond of saying this, especially in previous industries I’d worked in which were fairly commoditised and definitely got the thin end of the Porter 5 forces wedge. These industries were also fiercely competitive.

My point was really this: There are no competitors, only potential partners or customers.” There is always a possibility of working with someone rather than against them. It’s more productive, and better for the collective, greater good. Of course, one of my reasons for saying this was to re-position my company, and de-position the opposition, by making such a statement, implying that we were different, unique even.

To an extent this is similar to the process of challenging the status quo. When you can look at things from a fresh perspective, and frame the place where you compete in a different way, then you reframe your market, you create fresh categories for yourself and you forge a unique set of dynamics where you are the lynchpin or fulcrum around which everything revolves.

When you can do this, your competitors melt away. There are no competitors; only you exist in this space, and your value enhances accordingly.

Tags change, Competition, Dynamics, Structure

Categories Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy

Customer Requirements

March 7, 2016 //

It’s hard to underestimate the importance of understanding your customer’s requirements.

I only needed one lesson to remember this. In my final year of college I paid a few quid to go on a 2-day ‘introduction to business’ course. It was a very academic college, with almost no course devoted to business, so this was something entirely new for many of us. It was very interactive, by which I mean we were divided into groups and completed tasks like launching a new product, negotiating the construction of a building with a local council, or selling something to customers. I remember it from thirty years ago because we learned by doing. If I’d been lectured at, the course would have melted into the hundreds of other days of ‘training’ that I’ve received.

The course was designed to simulate working in real business, not learning the theoretical stuff you do as a undergraduate or graduate. As such, the exercises had to be completed within a certain time. As you’re probably sick of hearing from me, time is the one thing we never have enough of in business, so the exercises had a genuine applicability.

In one exercise our job was to ‘manufacture’ products and sell them to ‘customers’. The product was the paper that fits into 4-hole punch binders, European A4 size. Our team was running behind on time and after a poor sales experience with our first group of customers, we were in a mad dash to get in front of our next group of customers.

This time we were ready, we had our paper, freshly punched, and proudly demonstrated this to our latest group of customers. They became really agitated and threatened to leave the meeting. We didn’t know what the problem was, so we asked them. So they took out their binders. The binders were A5, 2-hole punch.

We hadn’t understood the rules of the game, and we hadn’t listened to our customers to understand their requirements, which were different to the other groups of customers in the game.

Didn’t make that mistake again…

Tags Needs, Wants

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

What’s Your Filter?

March 4, 2016 //

What’s your filter when you’re writing, for business or pleasure? As with many things, physical or digital, I find it often helps to put something through a filter to clean it and make it suitable for consumption.

I create a lot of content in the area of business software. Some of it is quite technical and some of the concepts are quite complex. I’m not technical and I sometimes find it hard to fathom technical stuff. I do complex well either, and I always strive for simple if I can. If you haven’t explained software in business terms for a business audience, you haven’t explained it properly.

So the filter I use is me. First of all I have to be sure that I can understand something. Someone has to be able to explain something new to me in a way that helps me understand it, without hiding behind jargons, TLAs or short cuts. If I don’t understand it, I ask a question to get an explanation I understand. If I understand it, then that’s half the battle.

Once I understand, I try to write it in a way that I would understand. I know that sounds silly when you read it that way. Sometimes, however, we can write about something without fully understanding what we’re writing. So I ask myself, ‘could I understand this if I was reading about it as a novice in this area?’

If it’s not understandable to me, I try and re-write it until it is. Of course, I’ll make mistakes and accurately convey a misunderstanding or else inaccurately describe something I understood correctly. But that’s why we do drafts, so we can get feedback and improve them.

My golden rule: if it’s understandable to me, it’s understandable to anyone.

Tags Filter, Rationale, Writing

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Strategy

In Praise of the London 521 Service

March 2, 2016 //

As a frequent visitor to England’s capital city, I’m a regular user of public transport. Planes, trains, tubes, buses; I hardly ever take a cab. A 1-day ‘travelcard’ allows me to use public transport all over Greater London.

I generally stay in the south-west or south of the city centre, so when I’m heading into central London I’m on the train to the giant termini of Waterloo or London Bridge station respectively, before venturing into the heart of the beast.

This is fortunate for me, because there is a rather splendid bus service called the 521. The 521 goes from Waterloo to London Bridge in a kind of upturned ashtray shape, passing Waterloo Bridge, Holborn, Cannon Street and London Bridge. Then it loops around and goes back from London Bridge to Waterloo, before repeating the process, all day.

What I find about big cities is that generally the bus is the mode of transport you get to know the last, but it’s often the most rewarding.

At rush hour there can be hundreds of people politely queuing for the service from Waterloo, yet the buses come back to back and hoover up 500 or so people every 10 minutes. From London Bridge, the queues are not as deep, and you also have the majestic splendour of the Shard to distract you as you wait around 3 minutes maximum for a bus. The views from the bus, as you can imagine, are spectacular, and you also get the buzz from being right in the teeth of the city and amongst the people, which you never truly experience on the train or in the soulless bowels of the underground. It’s a truly great way to see the city while getting from A to B, or from B to C.

If I was a bus driver I think I would like delivering the 521 service.

Tags Bus, London, Public Transport, Travel

Categories Customers

The Eighth B2B Product Launch Process Step

February 29, 2016 //

In the seventh B2B product launch process step, we reviewed the outcomes of our efforts and hopefully learned some lessons to help us improve the next time.

So what’s the eighth B2B product launch process step? It’s the same as the last step of the B2B marketing process, the B2B buying process, and the B2B sales process. It’s back to the beginning, to the first step.

The cycle of the B2B product launch process is complete. As at the very beginning, we need to check our facts. We’re onto a new project, a new product launch, step one of a new launch process. Off we go – again!

Tags B2B, facts, Product Launch

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

The Seventh B2B Product Launch Process Step

February 26, 2016 //

Well, we executed the plan. We completed the sixth step of the B2B product launch process.

Now it’s time to see how we did. The seventh B2B product launch process step is to manage the outcomes of the project.

It’s important to manage the outcomes and compare them with the requirements and targets we set earlier in the process. One of the common mistakes is to move onto the next shiny toy and not review performance, so that you learn from your mistakes, celebrate the high points and be better the next time.

In managing those outcomes, it’s important to be fluid. In some areas you’ll have satisfied your requirements, and in some areas you won’t. If you nailed every target, then you probably weren’t ambitious enough.

A fluid approach helps you understand the poorer areas of performance. Did you fail to accurately capture your customer’s needs, or did you interpret their feedback wrongly? Which areas of the business did not deliver to target? What are the lessons learned?

A ‘lessons learned’ meeting, which should be a collaborative rather than a finger-pointing or scapegoat-finding exercise, is a great way to close out the project and feed the lessons – requirements, scheduling, resourcing, delivery – into the next project and across the business.

Tags Learning, Outcome, Results, Review

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

The Sixth B2B Product Launch Process

February 24, 2016 //

In our fifth B2B product launch process step, we made sure our people were ready to go.

In our sixth B2B product launch process step, we go. It’s time to execute the plan.

Of course, no plan ever goes absolutely 100% to plan, if you pardon the repetition. That’s why it’s always good to have a plan B, and perhaps a plan C. For the main pillars of your plan, what will do you if one of those pillars doesn’t stand up as you expect? For example, if you’ve decided for a ‘big bang’ launch, a good fall-back position is to go for a phased or soft launch, starting with a smaller, more manageable set of advocate customers, and moving from there.

During the execution phase, which might take place over weeks or even months, regular progress meetings with all the key players keep the project on track and allow you to take corrective action if key pillars fall behind, affecting the overall RAG – Red, Amber or Green – status of the project.

You’ve done much of the hard work, well done. In many ways, this sixth step is the easiest. It’s like when it comes to game-time. Everyone knows what’s expected of them, and what the steps are to deliver.

And now, for the next step, it’s time to see how you got on.

Tags Execute, Plan

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

The Fifth B2B Product Launch Process Step

February 19, 2016 //

Following hot on the heels of your planning work in the B2B product launch process is the need to get your people sorted.

The fifth B2B product launch process step is to align your people.

After you’ve planned the launch, you should get your protagonists together to review the planning, get their feedback, and make sure they’re comfortable committing to what you’re asking of them and their departments.

For this reason it’s wise to allow a bit of wiggle room time before executing the plan. This enables you to iterate your planning document so that all the key players are happy with the modified version.

Another useful step to build in is the consideration and incorporation of any feedback and experiences from those of your partners and customers who have had access to any prototypes or beta versions of your product. This work may have knock-on effects for your lead times and planning, so you’ll be thanking yourself for building in buffer before you hit the execute button. It’s also a good time to capture agreement from these early adopters to help with marketing endorsements and – in the absence of paying customers for the product – build credibility and confidence for the launch.

So, you’ve done your planning, got it blessed, and profited from the feedback loop on early versions of the product. You’re good to go.

Tags Alignment, People

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Strategy

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