Variety is the spice of life

No relationship can last forever unless parties involved keep reinventing. Whether a friendship, marriage, employment or business partnership, neither party can take it for granted.

You need to remain attractive to the other in the ever changing backdrop.New options emerge all the time for both parties just as initial basis for the relationship wears off over time.

To borrow loosely from Kamasutra, innovation is the glue.

Mobile is the new online

Online no longer means PC connected to the Internet.

By sheer numbers, penetration of cell phones is lot higher than computer in many emerging economies. As these countries see phenomenal growth rates in cell phone user base, drastic falls in mobile communication costs (call and Internet) and more importantly cell phones becoming more critical to day-to-day work than even a computer in some cases, cell phones as a channel are becoming more powerful than computers to communicate with customers and prospects.

Taking a simple example, a plumber can manage without a computer but a cell phone keeps him in touch with his customers and gets him prospects.

The 'featuritis' or continous addition of features and reduction of prices mean the Cell phone becomes more central to our prospects' lives than a computer or a newspaper or TV. Smarter phones are making themselves mobile PCs that we can carry,use and interact with - anywhere, any time.

Are you considering mobile phone as a marketing Chanel in your marketing programs?

Are you leveraging this increasingly powerful medium for your business?

Winners everywhere

Do you want to be original or do you want to copy the best?

It is not easy to answer this.whether you are writing a proposal, making a pitch, designing a logo or website, do you want to be original or try to copy from a winner?

With Internet making it very easy to copy, the temptation to copy a winner is quite big. Just as Google figures out that your content is not original, serious visitors will figure out that it's not your own.

You lose on two counts. A visitor thinks you are a copycat. More importantly you will be seen as a me-too and you will lose the chance to be different.

In the bigger scheme of things, the second one is worse.

Be original. Even if you fail that way, you control your destiny, not someone else.

Chances are you will win.

Are you a good Story Teller?

Everyone who needs their place under the sun , needs a story thats different, relevant and interesting. The same applies to marketing.

How are you not a 'me-too'?

Are you just latching on to the latest 'buzzwords' or 'hype words' or do you have a story that nobody else in the market place?

A Groupon story of 'local discount deals' quickly gets copied by LivingSocial.com .

A 'Harvard Connection' story is better executed by Facebook which kills Myspace on its way.

A 'Your body is your Game Controller' story brings 'Kinect' to limelight and can help it compete with a Wii.

Whats your story and how is it different , how difficult is it to copy and how well is it executed?

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.

Amateurs built the arc, Professionals built the titanic

Never be afraid to try something new!

Tomorrow's winning ideas can come from people you never expect!

The Budget Issue

How many times have you heard 'our marketing budgets are getting cut coz they are easiest to cut'!

B2B sellers who sell into marketing functions ( advertising agencies for example) talk about how their clients are unable to find money for their services and hence the shorter revenue inflow.

Here's my question to them:

Have you gone to your clients offering a 'Revenue Driver' or a 'Revenue Multiplier'  - not just another item to spend to 'Build their brand........"!

Let me explain. If you are able to offer something that drives their revenue up directly or multiplies their revenue ,as DIRECTLY as possible, will your B2B client be able to snub it off ,citing budget cuts?

If your offering is truly a Revenue Driver or Multiplier , businesses will find money to fund your offers. Budget cut will not be your showstopper.

On the other hand, all you are offering is helping build a brand , your clients do not have the visibility,patience,spend for the future . Especially in today's times.

How directly relevant can you make your offering to your client's revenue?

Where the mind is without fear

Hope you have read the poem by nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore with this title.

If you haven't, you can find it here .

This post is not about the great poem/author.

It is about where such a mind is required - in 'Marketing'.

A fearless mind is required to

- To question conventional wisdom /products/services/offerings/pricing/channels....

- To question the customers' conventional thinking if your alternative thinking can help them

- To question every marketing technique known, to see if it will work in the ever changing business world

- To question oneself to get better all the time


"....Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action..."

Timeless words indeed!

Sales Person is a customer too!

Many a time, customer objections seem to make salespeople think of them as idiots/unreasonable/irrational....

Every salesperson is a customer too for a number of products/services all the time.

Every salesperson selects/deselects/buys/ a large number of products/services from a number of sellers(vendors). Can you use that knowledge to address customer objections BETTER?

Whenever a customer objection araises, apply the following train of thought:

- If I were the customer , what would have made me raise a similar objection? what issues/impact factors/drivers would have made me behave that way?

- What would have convinced me against that objection? What exactly was I looking for when I raise such an objection?


This process in my view, will certainly improve the way customer objections are handled. Try and let me know.

Central Idea and the balance 50%

Steve Krug says in his book 'Dont make me Think' that every web page content can get reduced by 50% without losing its meaning. The thought can easily extend to the books we read, presentations we attend,speeches we listen to.

In the age of 140 character communication ( pioneered by Twitter), stripping the communication to its bones saves a lot for everybody ( removes irrelevent audience,saves time/money for audience and the communicator,makes the transaction cheaper and is the need of the hour ( when everything mentioned here is in short supply today!).

Do you need 400 pages to say 'Focus on core competency'?

Do you need 50/60 slides to present one great idea?

Do you need 60 minutes of my time when 5 will do?

Do you need to print a book, when a blog will do?


If you are still not convinced, understand the japanese motto "Anything complex is costly. Anything simpler is cheaper". I rest the case.

will web2.0,web 3.0 work for you?

while a section of the world is finding web 3.0 glamorous, a larger slice of the business world is still figuring out whether web2.0 is of any 'real' use to them.

Don't get carried away by the news on Dell's $3mn revenue from Twitter! Not everyone is a Dell.

Look at these before you leap:


1. How net savvy are YOUR CUSTOMERS?

2. Do they ever buy anything on net/mobile? ( you will be surprised at the number of businesses whose online procurement is a practical disappointment )

3. Does their buying process allow them to make a decision from just a few web pages/conversations?

4.Is your product/service customised for online purchase?

5.How does it compare with your competitors' online offerings?



Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile