Tag Archives: Sales

Startups Must Be Where Their Customers Are

Startups Must Be Where Their Customers Are

GUEST POST from Steve Blank

“A CEO running a B-to-B startup needs to live in the city where their business is – or else they’ll never scale.”

I was having breakfast with Erin, an ex-student, just off a red-eye flight from New York. She’s built a 65-person startup selling enterprise software to the financial services industry. Erin had previously worked in New York for one of those companies and had a stellar reputation in the industry. As one would expect, with banks and hedge funds as customers, the majority were based in the New York metropolitan area.

Where Are Your Biggest Business Deals?

Looking a bit bleary-eyed, Erin explained, “Customers love our product, and I think we’ve found product/market fit. I personally sold the first big deals and hired the VP of sales who’s building the sales team in our New York office. They’re growing the number of accounts and the deal size, but it feels like we’re incrementally growing a small business, not heading for exponential growth. I know the opportunity is much bigger, but I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong.”

Erin continued, “My investors are starting to get impatient. They’re comparing us to another startup in our space that’s growing much faster. My VP of Sales and I are running as fast as we can, but I’ve been around long enough to know I might be the ex-CEO if we can’t scale.”

While Erin’s main sales office is in New York, next to her major prospects and customers, Erin’s company was headquartered in Silicon Valley, down the street from where we were having breakfast. During the Covid pandemic, most of her engineering team worked remotely. Her inside sales team (Sales Development and Business Development reps) used email, phone, social media and Zoom for prospecting and generating leads. At the same time, her account executives were able to use Zoom for sales calls and close and grow business virtually.

There’s a Pattern Here

Over breakfast, I listened to Erin describe what at first seemed like a series of disconnected events.

First, a new competitor started up. Initially, she wasn’t concerned as the competitor’s product had only a subset of the features that Erin’s company did. However, the competitor’s headquarters was based in New York, and their VP of Sales and CEO were now meeting face-to-face with customers, most of whom had returned to their offices. While Erin’s New York-based account execs were selling to the middle tier management of organizations, the CEO of her competitor had developed relationships with the exec staff of potential customers. She lamented, “We’ve lost a couple of deals because we were selling at the wrong level.”

Second, Erin’s VP of sales had just bought a condo in Miami to be next to her aging parents, so she was commuting to NY four days a week and managing the sales force from Miami when she wasn’t in New York. Erin sighed, “She’s as exhausted as I am flying up and down the East Coast.”

Third, Erin’s account execs were running into the typical organizational speedbumps and roadblocks that closing big deals often encounter. However, solving them via email, Zoom and once-a-month fly-in meetings wasn’t the same as the NY account execs being able to say, “Hey, our VP of Sales and CEO are just down the street. Can we all grab a quick coffee and talk this over?” Issues that could have been solved casually and quickly ballooned into ones that took more work and sometimes a plane trip for her VP of Sales or Erin to solve.

By the time we had finished breakfast it was clear to me that Erin was the one putting obstacles in front of her path to scale. Here’s what I observed and suggested.

Keep Your Eye on The Prize

While Erin had sold the first deals herself, she needed to consider whether each deal happened because as CEO, she could call on the company’s engineers to pivot the product. Were the account execs in New York trying to execute a sales model that wasn’t yet repeatable and scalable without the founder’s intervention? Had a repeatable and scalable sales process truly been validated? Or did each sale require a heroic effort?

Next, setting up their New York office without Erin or her VP of Sales physically living in New York might have worked during Covid but was now holding her company back. At this phase of her company the goal of the office shouldn’t be to add new accounts incrementally – but should be how to scale – repeatably. Hiring account execs in an office in New York let Erin believe that she had a tested, validated, and repeatable sales playbook that could rapidly scale the business. The reality was that without her and the VP of Sales living and breathing the business in New York, they were trying to scale a startup remotely.

Her early customers told Erin that her company had built a series of truly disruptive financial service products. But now, the company was in a different phase – it needed to build and grow the business exponentially. And in this phase, her focus as a CEO needed to change – from searching for product/market fit to driving exponential growth.

Driving Exponential Growth

Exponential Growth Requires Relentless Execution

Because most of her company’s customers were concentrated in a single city, Erin and her VP of Sales needed to be there – not visiting in a hotel room. I suggested that:

  • Erin had to quickly decide if she wanted to be the one to scale the business. If not, her investors were going to find someone who could.
  • If so, she needed to realize that she had missed an important transition in her company. In a high-dollar B-to-B business, building and scaling sales can’t be done remotely. And she was losing ground every day. Her New York office needed a footprint larger than she was. It needed business development and marketing people rapidly creating demand.
  • Her VP of Sales might be wonderful, but with the all the travel the company is only getting her half-time. Erin needs a full-time head of sales in New York. Time to have a difficult conversation.
  • Because she was behind, Erin needed to rent an apartment in New York for a year, and spend the next six months there and at least two weeks a month after that. Her goal was to:
    1. Validate that there was a repeatable sales process. It not, build one
    2. Build a New York office that could create a sales and marketing footprint without her presence. Only then could she cut back her time in the City.
  • Finally, she needed to consider that if her customers were primarily in New York and the engineers were working remotely, why weren’t the company headquarters in New York?

I Hate New York

As we dug into these issues, I was pretty surprised to hear her say, “I spent a big part of my career in New York. I thought coming out to Stanford and the West Coast meant I could leave the bureaucracy of large companies and that culture behind. Covid let me do that for a few years. I guess now I’m just avoiding jumping back into an environment I thought I had left.”

We lingered over coffee as I suggested it was time for her to take stock of what’s next. She had something rare – a services company that provided real value with products that early customers loved. Her staff didn’t think they were joining a small business, neither did her investors. If she wasn’t prepared to build something to its potential, what was her next move?

Lessons Learned

  • For a startup, the next step after finding product/market fit is finding a repeatable and scalable sales process
  • This requires a transition to the relentless execution of creating demand and exponentially growing sales
  • If your customers are concentrated in a city or region, you need to be where your customers are
  • The CEO needs to lead this growth focus
  • And then hand it off to a team equally capable and committed

The full article originally appeared on Steve Blank’s blog

Image credits: Pixabay, Steve Blank

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Make 2023 the Year of Successful Change

Make 2023 the Year of Successful Change

Wow! Exciting news!

Because my book was one of the bestselling titles of 2022, from now until January 30, 2023 you can get a 40% discount on my latest book Charting Change!

OR you can also save on the eBook!

You must go to SpringerLink for this sale on the bestselling titles of 2022:

  • The offer is valid until January 30, 2023
  • Please use TOP2023 at check-out to get your discount on books & eBooks*

Click here and enter the code TOP2023 before checkout

*This offer is valid for English-language Springer, Palgrave, Apress books and eBooks and is redeemable on link.springer.com only. Titles affected by fixed book price laws, forthcoming titles and titles temporarily not available on link.springer.com are excluded from this promotion, as are reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, subscriptions, or bulk purchases. The currency in which your order will be invoiced depends on the billing address associated with the payment method used, not necessarily your home currency. Regional VAT/tax may apply. Promotional prices may change due to exchange rates. This offer is valid for individual customers only. Booksellers, book distributors, and institutions such as libraries and corporations please visit springernature.com/contact-us. This promotion does not work in combination with other discounts or gift cards.

Five Lessons from a Harvard Professor on Selling with Service

Five Lessons from a Harvard Professor on Selling with Service

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Most people think that customer service is a department that handles complaints and problems. There may be a department or contact center that does, but customer service is more than that. It’s a philosophy that must be embraced by everyone in an organization, and that includes sales.

I had a chance to interview Frank Cespedes for an episode of Amazing Business Radio. Cespedes is a Harvard Business School professor and author of six books, including his latest, Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. One of his books, Aligning Strategy and Sales, was hailed by Forbes as “… perhaps the best sales book ever.” Here are five lessons he shared, with my commentary following, that should convince you that selling with service is today’s best sales strategy.

1. Sales and customer service merge together. Selling with service is all about what we do to enhance the sales experience. We make it easy, eliminate friction, stay in touch and make the customer feel (at least in the moment) that they are the most important customer we have.

2. Sales and customer support are increasingly intertwined. Typically, the sales team makes sales, and the customer support team delivers service. More and more, these two responsibilities (and departments) are connecting to create a seamless journey for the customer. During the “after experience,” as I like to call it, what is traditionally referred to as customer support continues the sales process with upsells, cross-sells and other tactics to generate revenue for the company.

3. The sales team is becoming a smaller part of the sales conversation. This doesn’t mean the sales team is any less important. However, the days of the salesperson being, as Cespedes says, “an organic, walking, talking version of product and price information” are gone. Customers are just one or two clicks away from getting the information and price they need to make decisions. We must recognize that to have a winning combination, online information, customer support and sales must work together.

4. People don’t want to be sold. They want to buy. This expression has been around for some time, but it’s never been more relevant than today. In the past, most customers would want to talk to a salesperson at the beginning of the sales process. Today, however, most prefer to start their buying journey with their own research. There’s great information to be found through a quick Google search. Before the customer ever talks to a salesperson, they may be close to a buying decision, if they haven’t already decided to do business with the company. The conversation with a salesperson becomes more of a formality.

5. The most important thing about selling is, and always has been, the buyer. Let’s never forget this commonsense, but very sage, advice. Customers get to decide how they want to buy. If they want to skip the formal sales process, let them do so. If they want to do their own research, give them the tools they need (a knowledge base on a website, videos on YouTube, etc.). If they want to talk directly to someone in the company, give them easy access to the right person. Let the customer buy from you the way they want to, which might be different from the way you’ve traditionally sold in the past.

With all the changes caused by the pandemic, supply chain issues, employment problems and a scary economy, we must be prepared to give our customers the journey they want, which is not always how we’ve done business in the past. Sales are not just sales. Customer support is not just customer support. Both fall inside the bigger concept of the customer experience. Heed Cespedes’ advice. Sell with service, and create the experience that makes customers want to buy from you.

This article originally appeared on Forbes

Image Credit: Shep Hyken

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of June 2022

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of June 2022Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. We also publish a weekly Top 5 as part of our FREE email newsletter. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are June’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. An Innovation Action Plan for the New CTO — by Steve Blank
  2. The Lost Tribe of Medicine — by Arlen Meyers, M.D.
  3. What Can Leaders Do to Have More Innovative Teams? — by Diana Porumboiu
  4. Transformation Insights — by Bruce Fairley
  5. Selling To Generation Z – This is What They Want — by Shep Hyken
  6. It is Easier to Change People than to Change People — by Annette Franz
  7. Leading a Culture of Innovation from Any Seat — by Patricia Salamone
  8. Harnessing the Dragons of your Imagination for Innovation — by Braden Kelley
  9. Successful Asynchronous Collaboration — by Douglas Ferguson
  10. Four Reasons the Big Quit Exists — by Braden Kelley

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in May:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last two years:

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Keeping Pace with the Latest Trends in Social Media and Online Video

David Meerman ScottThe ways we communicate continue to evolve. Keeping pace with the latest trends in social media and online video, while preventing your product or service from getting lost in the digital clutter, is a daunting task. David Meerman Scott is a master at helping you speak directly to your audience, make a strong personal connection, and generate attention for your business.

In the eighth edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Content Marketing, Podcasting, Social Media, AI, Live Video and Newsjacking to Reach Buyers Directly, David explores the latest approaches for highly effective public relations, marketing, and customer communications – while helping you avoid of the costs of traditional advertising!

New Rules of Marketing and PRI had the opportunity recently to interview David, a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, investor and advisor to emerging companies, and bestselling author of 12 books, including Fanocracy, about the new eighth edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

Throughout his career he has been fascinated by seeing the future of how people and organizations work together, studied ‘what’s next’, and looked for patterns others don’t see.

Three times a year David (@dsmcott) is the lead marketing speaker at the legendary Tony Robbins Business Mastery events, delivering a two hour session on New Marketing Mastery.

Below is the text of the interview:

1. What is the biggest change in either PR or Marketing that today’s companies face?

I wrote this for the first edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR back in 2007: “There used to be only three ways to get noticed: Buy expensive advertising, beg the mainstream media to tell your story for you, or hire a huge sales staff to bug people individually about your products. Now we have a better option: publishing interesting content on the web, content that your buyers want to consume.” The same is true today upon the publication of the 8th edition!

The tools of the marketing and PR trade have changed. The skills that worked offline to help you buy or beg or bug your way into opportunity are the skills of interruption and coercion. Online success comes from thinking like a journalist and publishing amazing content that will brand you as an organization or person it would be a pleasure to do business with. You are in charge of your own success.

2. Must companies re-think their approach to PR in the digital age?

Many people steeped in the tradition of product promotion naturally feel drawn to prattle on and on about their products and services. But I have news for you. Nobody cares about your products and services. Yes, you read that right.

What people do care about are themselves and how you can solve their problems. People also like to be entertained and to share in something remarkable. In order to have people talk about you and your ideas, you must resist the urge to hype your products and services. Instead, create something interesting that will be talked about online. When you get people talking on the Web, people will line up to learn more and to buy what you have to offer.

Sadly, marketers continue to hype products and services instead of understanding buyers and creating interesting content to reach them.

3. Do press releases still have value?

Yes, press releases have value but way less than most PR professionals believe. There is so much more that can be done.

Somehow along the way PR professionals have lost sight of what ‘true’ PR is and have set their focus on the media. What quick steps can PR pros take to get back to the public relations roots of creating mutually beneficial relationships with all of their publics (shareholders, stakeholders, communities, employees, etc.)?

To paraphrase the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), definition: “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”

Nowhere does this description mention the media!

Somewhere along the line “public relations” became the same as “media relations.” What people need to realize is that these are different activities. Media relations, or working through journalists, is fine. Hey, who doesn’t want to be quoted in an important outlet?

But there are so many other ways to hear attention.

PR is about reaching your audience. There are many more ways to do that than just via the media: YouTube videos, blog posts, eBooks, charts, graphs, photos, a Twitter feed, a presence on Instagram, TikTok and so much more.

4. What role should LinkedIn play in companies’ marketing strategies? Any difference in your answer for B2B vs. B2C companies?

There are many social networks out there and LinkedIn is one of them. Marketers should understand their buyers and be active on the social networks that are most important to them. For many B2B businesses, LinkedIn is super important, so for them yes, LinkedIn is valuable. However many people use LinkedIn as another way to send unwanted sales messages. To be effective people should use LinkedIn to publish content and to engage with other people’s content.

Continue reading the rest of our conversation on CustomerThink

SIX more questions and answers!

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How to Leverage AI and Automation to Boost Sales Performance

How to Leverage AI and Automation to Boost Sales Performance

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In today’s digital world, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are becoming increasingly commonplace. These technologies are playing an increasingly important role in the way businesses operate, including sales processes. By leveraging AI and automation, sales organizations can streamline their processes, improve efficiency, and boost sales performance. Here are ten ways you can use AI and automation to boost sales performance:

1. Automated Lead Qualification

Automated lead qualification helps sales teams identify and prioritize leads. AI-powered lead qualification technology can quickly process large amounts of data to identify leads that are most likely to convert.

2. Automated Follow-Ups

Automated follow-ups help sales teams stay in touch with leads. AI-powered technology can be used to send personalized emails and schedule follow-up calls.

3. Automated Pricing

Automated pricing helps sales teams quickly generate accurate quotes and proposals. AI-powered technology can be used to price products and services based on customer needs.

4. AI-Powered Sales Forecasting

AI-powered sales forecasting helps sales teams predict future sales more accurately. AI-powered technology can analyze data from previous sales and customer interactions to provide more accurate sales forecasts.

5. Automated Sales Reports

Automated sales reports help sales teams monitor their performance. AI-powered technology can be used to generate sales reports in real-time, tracking performance metrics such as lead conversion rates, customer lifetime value, and more.

6. Automated Lead Nurturing

Automated lead nurturing helps sales teams effectively engage leads and convert them into customers. AI-powered technology can be used to send personalized emails and messages to leads, helping sales teams close more deals.

7. Automated Sales Process Maps

Automated sales process maps help sales teams understand their sales processes better. AI-powered technology can be used to map out sales processes, helping sales teams identify potential bottlenecks and areas for improvement.

8. AI-Powered Customer Insights

AI-powered customer insights help sales teams better understand their customers. AI-powered technology can analyze customer data to provide sales teams with valuable insights about customer needs, interests, and behaviors.

9. Automated Customer Segmentation

Automated customer segmentation helps sales teams target their marketing and sales efforts. AI-powered technology can analyze customer data to segment customers into different categories based on their needs and interests.

10. AI-Powered Chatbots

AI-powered chatbots help sales teams engage with customers in real-time. AI-powered chatbots can be used to provide customers with product information, help them make purchases, and answer their questions.

Conclusion

By leveraging AI and automation, sales organizations can streamline their processes, improve efficiency, and boost sales performance. AI and automation technologies can help sales teams qualify leads, follow-up, generate accurate quotes and proposals, forecast sales, and more. With the right AI and automation tools, sales teams can increase their productivity and efficiency and provide a better customer experience.

Image credit: Pexels

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7 Steps to Building Stronger Sales Relationships with Human-Centric Problem Solving

7 Steps to Building Stronger Sales Relationships with Human-Centric Problem Solving

by Braden Kelley and Adam Radziszewski

Building strong sales relationships is all about trust and demonstrating how the product/solution will make the customer’s life better. But is traditional selling getting you where you want to go?

If you’re looking to close more business and feeling stuck, try injecting some human-centric problem solving into your sales process.

What is human-centric problem solving?

Human-centric problem solving goes beyond what people say they do. Instead, it looks for what people actually do.

The approach helps you investigate the distinctly human elements that go beyond what sales tools can tell you about a prospect. It can also help you discover the true problem worth solving for the prospect.

Sometimes, you’ll even find a new problem the customer doesn’t even know they have.

Click here to continue reading on Sales Hacker


Accelerate your change and transformation success

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Flash Sale – Change Planning Toolkit™ Lifetime License

Flash Sale - Change Planning Toolkit™ Lifetime License

You can now get a Lifetime Commercial License for the Change Planning Toolkit™!

Thank you to everyone that has already:

1. Gotten the 10 Free Tools to sample the power the toolkit
2. Purchased my book Charting Change and gotten 16 more tools to use
3. Considered purchasing a license to all 50+ tools in the Change Planning Toolkit™

Previously there were three options for using the Change Planning Toolkit™ to make money:

Option 1 for companies — $99.99 per year per user
Option 2 for companies — $299.99 + $2 per employee per year*
Option 3 for cities/states/countries — $0.01 per resident per year ($1,000 minimum)*

* These special licenses give full access to every person in the company or in the region.

BUT,

Now I’m super excited to announce the availability of a fourth option for people – the Lifetime Commercial License!

Available now for only $999.99
(a $36,999.00 value)

FLASH SALE!

First FIVE (5) people get a special price of $249.99
with coupon code 250LIFETIME

Next FIVE (5) people get a special price of $499.99
with coupon code 500LIFETIME

AND as a special bonus,

  1. I will credit any educational license investment towards the purchase of a commercial or city/state/country license
  2. If you refer a company or a city/state/country to me and they purchase a bulk license, I will share 20% of the year one revenue with you

** Lifetime refers to lifetime of the individual person

Thank you for continuing to support the change revolution!


Accelerate your change and transformation success

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Are you an expert?

I came across this video recently thanks to my friends at BLT who recruit consultants for firms in London and beyond.

It pokes fun at the experience many internal and external consultants face with clients, whether we are working on an innovation project, technology project, or some other kind of project.

So, I encourage you to check out the video for a chuckle and to leave a comment below:

How does this reflect your experience of being called upon as an “expert” by a project team?

Or your experience working in the consulting industry and meeting with potential clients in a pre-sales situation as the subject matter expert there with the partner and/or sales guy?

Build a Common Language of Innovation

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People-Centric Marketing

People-Centric MarketingWe live in an increasingly complex world where both the volume of change and the pace of change are accelerating. But it is not just change that is accelerating, choice is proliferating as well.

Witness the example of General Mills’ Cheerios. Introduced in 1941, there are now 13 varieties of Cheerios on the market, not including snack mixes introduced in 2008.

In its 70+ year history, General Mills introduced no variations in the first 35 years; all of the new varieties have been introduced during the second half of Cheerios’ lifespan, with eight of 13 new varieties being introduced in the last decade. The 13 current varieties of Cheerios (with launch dates) according to Wikipedia are:

  1. Cheerios (1941)
  2. Honey Nut Cheerios (1979) (see above)
  3. Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (1988)
  4. MultiGrain Cheerios (Original in the UK) (released 1992, relaunched 2009)
  5. Frosted Cheerios (1995)
  6. Yogurt Burst Cheerios (2005)
  7. Fruity Cheerios (2006) (Cheerios sweetened with fruit juice)
  8. Oat Cluster Crunch Cheerios (2007) (sweetened Cheerios with oat clusters)
  9. Banana Nut Cheerios (2009) (sweetened Cheerios made with banana puree)
  10. Chocolate Cheerios (2010) (Cheerios made with cocoa)
  11. Cinnamon Burst Cheerios (2011) (Cheerios made with cinnamon)
  12. Dulce de Leche Cheerios (2012) (sweetened Cheerios made with caramel)
  13. MultiGrain Peanut Butter Cheerios (2012) (Multigrain Cheerios with sorghum, not wheat, and peanut butter)

We have an overwhelming amount of choice in the supermarket, but we also have an ever growing roster of entertainment options as well:

  • Terrestrial, cable, satellite, and on demand television
  • Internet television (NBC.com, Comcast.com, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus)
  • Television on DVD or DVR
  • Over the air, satellite, and internet radio
  • YouTube, Vimeo, Vine and streaming music
  • Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google+
  • Console, PC, Tablet, and Smartphone gaming
  • Snapchat and Wechat
  • Live events and recordings of live events
  • and on and on

Advertising is proliferating:

  • TV and radio advertising
  • Out of Home advertising (Billboards, buildings, airplanes, buses, trucks, etc.)
  • Print advertising (Magazines, newspapers, etc.)
  • Movie and TV product placements
  • Movie theater advertising
  • Airborne advertising
  • In game product placements
  • Digital advertising (banners, videos, etc.)
  • Mobile advertising
  • Naming rights (stadiums, etc.)

Marketing is proliferating too:

  • Direct marketing (direct mail, email, telemarketing, etc.)
  • Partner marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization (aka SEO)
  • Search Engine Marketing (aka SEM)
  • Social Media marketing
  • Inbound marketing
  • Content marketing
  • Viral marketing
  • Loyalty and retention marketing
  • Spam
  • and my least favorite (contact form marketing – aka spam)

With this deluge of choice and competition for our attention, people are in fact more annoyed and less affected by advertising and marketing than ever before.

Growing Customers in a Deluge

So in today’s world, how do most effectively cultivate future customers, strengthen the relationship with existing customers, and maintain connections and grow commitment over time?

There is no single answer of course, but effective marketing in today’s world of endless choice and competition for people’s attention requires the appropriate mix of push and pull and recognizes that the ROI from marketing efforts should not all be attributed to the last click but instead is attributed to the overall customer journey and uses technology that allows you to connect together the different customer touchpoints and impressions over time to help you better understand how your holistic revenue generation system is working. Because effective marketing is not about converting leads, but instead about building relationships.

When your marketing efforts focus on building a relationship, trust, and even partnership with your customers, your organization stands to benefit more than by just seeking the quick scale. Even non-customers can be referrers and recommenders, and as companies grow, a single individual can have a customer, partner, and a competitor relationship with the same organization.

Are you living in marketing’s past?

So if marketing today is more about the customer journey, building relationships and even co-creation, then it becomes even more important to build understanding and trust. The power of the story, the power of experience, and the role of content in this new world become increasingly important in capturing and holding people’s attention. You’ll notice that I said people not customers or prospects, and their is an important reason underlying it.

Because of our increasingly interconnected and always on world, where Yelp has grown to become a more powerful engine of influence than neighbors and co-workers, it’s getting harder to tell who is an influencer and must tell a consistent story not just to prospects, but to all people. And in a world where algorithms determine whether you even appear in the places your potential customers trust, having the right content in the right places, at the right time, so that people (not just prospects) can find it at the various stops along the often long, meandering non-customer to prospective customer evolutionary path.

Embracing an expanded marketing focus on non-customers may be hard for some marketers, but others will see the importance of it in growing and maintaining the long-term health of the organization’s sales pipeline and brand equity.

How do you grow new customers?

Well, by growing the level of comfort and trust that people have in your organization and its employees. There are many ways to do this, but they require a strategy that first seeks to understand the typical paths that people take from non-customer to customer. A lot of people talk about trying to loyalize customers, or turning customers into advocates, and while that may sound logical, there is a flaw in that thinking. The flaw is that people can be influencers and advocates for your products and services before they become a customer (or who may never become a customer) if you’re doing a good job with your people-centric marketing.

When you better understand the journeys people take from non-customer to customer you can better understand what parts of the story to tell when and where. And often as you shift from a lead-generation, prospect-driven marketing focus to a people-centric one, you will start to see that in order to build the comfort and the trust and the excitement, that it will be more about barriers than benefits, more about problems than solutions.

As marketers we love to talk about benefits and solutions, but where we really need to focus is problems and barriers. Where is the friction? Where is the confusion? What are the chasms to be crossed? What are the pitfalls to be avoided?

When we start to understand these things, we will start to understand the stories and the content that need to be told and created in order to provide the jet pack to accelerate an individual from one level of comfort, trust, and purchase readiness to the next. The better we grasp what people are seeking to understand in order to evolve their level of comfort and trust, the better we can do at shaping our messages and our strategy to meet people where they are.

Who’s your thought leader?

This is where having a thought leader on staff comes into play, and why you might want to hire one or convert an existing employee or two into one. The job of the thought leader is to be a storyteller, a brand advocate, and ultimately to be the person that builds those bridges across the chasms and guides non-customers along their journey of understanding by demonstrating understanding of the problems, barriers, and pitfalls that non-customers and customers face, and helping to educate them on some of the ways that progress can be made and success created.

There is nothing wrong with trying to lead the thoughts of others. Someone has to lead, or at least to provoke. Just keep your ego at bay and focus on being a discussion leader and a facilitator within the topic area you are focusing on and key in on the transitions that you are trying to encourage. Ultimately what you are doing is growing customers, but there is no set timetable for when a non-customer might become a customer, and we’re not focused on speed as much as we are on acceleration. The closer we can draw non-customers to us, the more likely they are to want to become employees, partners, co-creators, advocates, or even aid in creating post-purchase rationalization instead of buyers remorse.

But the sad part is that most companies don’t recognize the importance of thought leaders, and the unique skillset that some people in understanding the journey and the problems, pitfalls, barriers, chasms, and transitions that matter to non-customers. Most consultancies want their consultants on the road billing every possible hour, and don’t allow anyone to focus on this important area of growing future customers. They dabble, and maybe they publish a white paper here or there that looks just like the white paper their five other competitors just put out, but they don’t commit to any marketing activities that result in immediate lead generation. There are a few consumer product companies that are doing surprisingly well in this area, but the two areas of greatest opportunity probably lie in the business-to-business (B2B) and service industries (consulting, legal services, etc.).

I’ve done a bit of work in these areas helping companies like Innocentive, Planview, Imaginatik, and Crowd Computing create single content input, multiple content output strategies to help evolve their ranks of non-customers along their journey with some informational pieces.

Thought leaders can and should play a large role in your innovation efforts as Evangelists (see my Nine Innovation Roles) and in helping your organization do a better job of value translation and value access (see my article on Innovation is All About Value). As you launch innovations into the marketplace, a people-centric marketing approach can make a huge difference in translating the potential value better for customers and non-customers alike and identifying areas of opportunity for improved value access (based on the thought leaders’ understanding of the non-customer’s journey) that can be communicated within the organization and new value access offerings that complete the core value creation of the innovation.

I hope by now you see the importance of focusing more on people-centric marketing and in understanding non-customers as well (or better) as we currently understand our customers.

But, of course in order to become a thought leader, someone must inevitably find what you have to say worth following.

So identify the thought leaders in your organization, or hire one, and start building your people-centric marketing strategy today!

Image source: bashfoo.com


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