Think or Tech?

iPhone,Blackberry,Internet,Facebook,Twitter,Google, Cable TV,Mobile Phone..... The technology around us is endless and seems to be all invasive in our lives. Do they help us think better?

I heard a colleague comment recently that her daughter feeds her kid based on what internet 'advises' her rather than her mother.

It may be wise to separate technology from our innate human quality of THINKING. IDEAS /Thinking/Judgement has to be independent of information overload.

A better phone or laptop will not make you ideate better or think differently. Thats a quality you need to develop independent of these. On the other hand, 'over dependency' on these devices may blunt your cerebral abilities.

When you want some fresh thinking, switch off that device first.

Style Guides that will help you

Use these style guides next time you write a note to customer/ web page/brochure/white paper/case study/article. You will benefit from what's working for millions.

Economist - The best in business

http://www.economist.com/research/styleguide/

Yahoo

http://styleguide.yahoo.com/

Quality of Language

In the tweeting/texting/googling era, colloquial words are getting added to the dictionary all the time. That is not to say that business english has become casual/frivolous.

As people get used to more cryptic communication, do not let this extend to your marketing /customer communication. Business still makes its first impressions on the quality of language used and texting abbreviations are not tolerated.

Think twice before you talk to your customer in a texting language.

What you need to know!

As a marketing professional, you have two choices:

Be the Voice of the company - for this you need to know your product/service inside out. you are the 'Product Expert'.

Be the Voice of the customer - in the company. For this you need to know your customer inside out. You are the 'Market Expert'.

If you are neither, your chances of success in marketing are low.

Does 'Experience' matter?

As jobs get commoditised, people get replaced by those who can do it cheaper,faster,better. How do you ensure you are in the second list?

- What innovation are you bringing to your job, everyday?

- The biggest impact seems to come from technology- internet, mobile,TV,convergence,social media.... How is this impacting your job/helping you do it better? Are you using these?

- How relevant is your experience? With everchanging marketplace, the experience of an environment 10years ago may need to checked.

- Are you learning from others' failures and successes so that you 'experiment' less?

- How 'networked' are you for absorbing ideas from outside your 'field of comfort' and apply them to your current job?

There is a reason Robots did not replace humans. we need that creativity all the time!

The 'BIG' temptation

Temptation to aim for something BIG the very first time, is quite common anywhere in life. Whether its Chinese olympics or the 56inch LCD tv or the Whopper Mac ......

This is not free of risks. Anything BIG falls, it makes BIG noise. Aiming for something BIG in a business context has more risks and chances of failure because the complexities have grown tremendously.

This tendency is especially common for people coming new to the organization who want to impress with MEGA things. But one needs to know that you are more remembered for the failures than successes and so you cannot afford BIG failures.

Aim for smaller objectives, smaller projects, smaller goals and ideas.

They tend to be more successful and give you the footing to try something bigger.

Cutting the Middle wo/man in marketing

How many of the marketing folks you know of , talk to the customer DIRECTLY?

Or do they depend on secondary/tertiary information fed by sales/colleagues/press/analysts etc?

Nothing comes close to interacting first hand with the customer and I see many marketing folks not very comfortable with that. The truth between the lines , the informal communication, the true meaning behind the words... all this one gets to appreciate only by interacting with the customer directly.

But interacting with customer needs lot of confidence , knowledge and skill. This is the reason perhaps many organizations do not 'allow' marketing folks to talk to customer directly as they are not sure that the marketing folks dont create a 'wrong' impression with the customer.


But this is the 'moment of truth' for marketers. The one most powerful in the organisation is the one who drives customer and business. Let that one be marketing folks. Amen to that!

Staffing sales and marketing positions

When you need to recruit /position someone for a sales and marketing role, it might be helpful to keep in mind the following:

- Unlike many other functions, the magic formula of skills for success is unknown in sales and marketing. Can you describe what skills you need to be an ace salesperson who always achieves?

- As an external and internal facing function, S&M needs more all rounded skills than many other functions. It might be that the person may have 50-60% of the skills and the rest have to be developed or mentored.

- Every role in sales and marketing can be linked to organizational goals . This linkage is critical else some of the roles may remain side-liners ( with the danger of elimination in times of trouble)

- Since there is no SOP ( Standard Operating Procedure) for many of S&M activities, which change with customer,market,business situation etc, the roles need continuous mentoring and monitoring.

- Look for people who have a bent of mind to continuously learn and have tolerance for frustration. Both are key to success in sales and marketing.

Good luck in building your sales and marketing teams!

Innovation in Sales and Marketing

Pressures of today's sales and marketing challenges mean that you cannot do the same old, same old....

Are you one of those who thinks customer's thinking is always right? How can you be so sure? Just because customer is on the other side does not mean customer is omniscient.

Are you one of those who thinks that your thinking is always right?

Good ideas are good but how 'implementable' are they in the 'CURRENT' context?

Many a time, there are many ideas on the table on increasing pipeline,sales etc. Check these ideas to see how many are 'do-able' ( else they would have been tried long time ago).

How many of these are tried by our competition? Whats working for them and whats not?

Are we reinventing the wheel that the idea was tried before in our own organization but did not work?

Can we try the idea in a small way so the 'failure' doesn't cost a LOT?

Try and fail fast rather than NOT TRY AT ALL.

Good luck.

What Customers want

This post is to all those who are figuring out what to say to a B2B prospect.

Here is a low down on the prospect:

S/He is extremely busy/overloaded with mails/phones/work and may not necessarily be looking for help from you.

Given a choice, the prospect would not like to change things but complete whats on his/her plate.

Prospect would like his/her image in the organisation to go up.

Now lets analyst the impact of each of these to our message:

- Do not bore them with your offerings. They care a damn.

- Do you know whats bothering them NOW? Else dont bother contacting

- Does your offering become a solution to their CURRENT PROBLEM?

- Can you convey this in 3 lines or LESS?

- WIll this improve his/her image in the organisation?


Check your message against this list.

Good luck with your messaging.