Archive for the ‘Sales and Marketing’ Category
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
Creativity is at the core of marketing. The act of defining an offering to an identified market segment through a well-crafted message should involve new thinking every step of way. To foster such creativity it helps to understand the different approaches people take to the challenge, the “Perfectionist” is one of these.
Perfectionists’ creativity centers on a drive to define an “ideal” solution that meets objective criteria for excellence. They never rest until all the details are identified, arranged and polished. Masters of adaptation, they will take ideas proven to work in one arena and transfer them to the current challenge. Digging into available data, understanding all the nuances of the scenario and crafting an approach most-likely to succeed is their specialty.
Perfectionists are cautious and really hate mistakes. If your challenge involves a truly “new-to-the-world” situation in which no precedent or standard of excellence exists, a perfectionist may be stymied due to this aversion to risky recommendations. In today’s world of instant access to information, however, there are very few marketing challenges where a perfectionist cannot access a model or a case study that will inform their approach and lead to productive results.
One of my clients had a perfectionist creative director and she found his work quite “edgy” and she was surprised when I described risk aversion as a common trait of such people. I encouraged her to ask him about the inspiration for his ideas the next time he presented a concept that struck her as new and bold. She explained that her approach to creativity included ongoing research about winning ideas from advertising competition around the world. Her innovation was to adapt an idea from this research to the challenge at hand – resulting in a creative approach that was new, fresh and exciting in the eyes of my client, and the market in question.
Managing them can be difficult at times because perfectionists have a tendency to be stubborn – after all, once you’ve crafted the “perfect” recommendation how can it be improved? Any change from perfect can only make it less perfect!
Perfectionists are especially valuable contributors to any group effort where you need someone grounded in facts and details to provide perspective and input in problem-solving and plan implementation.
Knowing your own approach to creativity and those of people on your team provides valuable leverage for maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
Creativity is at the core of marketing. The act of defining an offering to an identified market segment through a well-crafted message should involve new thinking every step o f way. To foster such creativity it helps to understand the different approaches people take to the challenge, the “Social Approach” is one of these.
People who take the Social Approach to creativity have a special advantage in that their strength – building connections with other people – is the heart and soul any sales effort that involves emotions and feelings. If your creativity challenge can be addressed through any form of collaborative approach that involves many people or folks of diverse backgrounds, then the skills involved in the Social Approach to creativity will be valuable. These skills include empathy, listening, trusting, persuasion and, when combined with other personality traits can even expand into enthusiasm and excitement.
Optimism infuses our social creatives because they crave positive responses from others and we all know you get more flies with honey than vinegar. This outward focus on response means they will always have the audience in mind for their ideas. This can cause a limitation, of sorts, in that unusually outrageous or controversial ideas may never be pursued due to this concern for acceptance.
Creativity that relies on the Social Approach is especially well-suited for marketing challenges involving intangibles such as services, concepts or even politics. The tendency to “talk in pictures” or with stories helps to evoke the feelings and images necessary in such challenges.
Managing them can be difficult at times because they are always “playing to the crowd” and you need to understand what that crowd is to understand what is important to them. Asking them, “how do you want to be seen around here” can be a useful entrée into a meaningful discussion on how best to lead them.
This same crowd-pleasing attitude also means they are especially well-suited to team-oriented efforts. They are natural facilitators of discussions and if you need to get the best from everybody in your creative efforts if won’t hurt to have a person who takes the Social Approach leading the way.
Knowing your own approach and those of people on your team provides valuable leverage for maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
Creativity is at the core of marketing. The act of defining an offering to an identified market segment through a well-crafted message should involve new thinking every step of the way. To foster such creativity it helps to understand the different approaches people take to the challenge, the “Analytical Approach” is one of these.
The Analytical Approach relies on logic and separating or reducing elements to their most basic level. This is a problem-solving mindset which looks at the various factors involved in a marketing challenge as pieces of a puzzle with the focus then being on figuring out the one best way all the pieces fit together.
One dimension that is shortchanged in this approach is that of emotion and feelings. If you’re in a market segment where emotions are critical to success, either in the product/service itself or in the communication content, then you will want to complement your Analytical creativity with approaches that tap into the world of emotions.
Creativity that relies on the Analytical Approach is especially well-suited for strategic challenges such as new product development, repositioning and segmentation. People employing the Analytical Approach will often prefer to work alone or at least have clear “ownership” of their turf regarding the business.
Managing them can be difficult at times because they have such strong confidence in the value of their own ideas that they discount the contributions of others. They believe their own ideas are best so when trying to direct them in a particular way you are well-served to frame the discussion in such a way that they will come to your point of view on their own.
This same stubborn belief in their own ideas also means they are especially well suited to pursue entirely new areas and create “new to the world” concepts. As you can guess, many entrepreneurs come from the ranks of people employing the Analytical Approach to creativity.
Knowing your own approach and those of people on your team provides valuable leverage for maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
As highlighted in this NPR article, increased fuel costs, demands for improved work-life balance and technology advancements all support more people doing their work from their home.
Two key reasons this is of special importance to the marketing community. First of all, many of us are “knowledge workers” – in that what we do involves information, graphics or communications – all of which can be digitized and managed as well from one’s home office as from anyplace else. Also, as marketers, we need to be aware of all such trends. There are marketing opportunities in the “telecommuter” segment, either by bundling business services in a new way that appeals to the telecommuter segment or in yet-to-be-defined innovative products, services or campaigns.
One promising aspect of this trend is the incredible productivity boost it can create. For the employee it comes from eliminating the time and cost of transporting yourself from your residence to your place of work. On any given day this probably adds at least an hour of discretionary time for most people. It is certainly something I value in my own “work from home” environment.
The employers’ side of the equation includes reduced expenses for facilities to make room for the employee.
Of course telecommuting won’t work in all situations and for all people. It takes a certain type of person to manage the independence inherent in telecommuting. If you’re looking for hierarchy and structure you won’t find it working from home. While the NPR article also mentions a need for personal interaction, I think this “need” will be increasingly fulfilled by interactive technology as time goes on and in fact it may be easier to connect with people via a network than face-to-face in a workplace. Anybody who has ever scrambled for a meeting room at the last minute can relate to that!
People who grow up texting and on Facebook will collaborate in different ways than older generations, for sure.
Andrea L. Crabtree, MS
In the shiny, beautiful world of magazine photography, airbrushing models and actresses is an open secret. How much this affects the self-esteem of girls and women is a recurring topic in the media.
Recently, a British government-commissioned study proposed affixing disclaimers to photos depicting digitally altered models.
Retouched photos turn up in both editorial and commercial photography. Focusing on commercial photography for our purposes, it seems appropriate to ask if we have pushed the perfect, unnatural world depicted in advertising to a new realm.
We want our target audiences to aspire to the world we create with our particular product/service.
Is it right to make that desire, for most women, completely unattainable?
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
Sales occur at the nexus of customer need and company value. Connecting those two requires a skill we’re addressing in a series of sales training workshops I’m conducting this winter.
A prerequisite for selling is to understand how your products’ attributes generate value. Most salespeople are very familiar with the attributes of their business. If you’re a manufacturer, you know the specifications of things you make. If you’re a service provider, you know the parameters of your expertise and customer service that define a customer relationship. For each specification or parameter you must understand the answer to the marketplace’s demand of “So What?”
For example, one of my projects involves a client whose salespeople are justifiably proud of the company’s strong community commitment exemplified in their local investments, their donations to charitable causes and the support they provide to employees’ volunteer activities. But when I challenged them with a “So What?” all I got in response were blank stares. For them, the commitment is an end in itself. It is part of who they are. This is a great sales story about their authentic and genuine commitment to their hometown but what value does this deliver to a prospective customer?
With further exploration we identified the relevant connection. Part of their service differentiation is the relationships their sales representatives develop with their customers. The community commitment is relevant to that relationship because it is directly tied to their deep roots in the community. This company is not going anywhere and its people aren’t either. They tend to have long-term employment so clients can trust what they say – when questions arise then the same person who sold them the program is going to be there to answer questions about that program.
For prospective clients, then, the value of the company’s community commitment is how this translates into committed employees who develop deep and trusted relationships with customers.
Andrea Crabtree, MS
You have carefully crafted your marketing plans, presented them to the sales team at their biannual meeting and…
the sales numbers move not all in the next couple of months. Or, worse, they slide in the wrong direction.
What went wrong? Was it your marketing plan or did the competition’s marketing team hit one out of the park?
I have been in this position as a salesperson and would be lying if I did not admit that on a few occasions the thought crossed my mind that maybe my marketing team had been…wrong.
But the blame game is useless.
Most likely, your first action will be an objective analysis of your original marketing plans. Hindsight may reveal subtle but significant weaknesses hidden from you months ago.
However, from a sales perspective, there are a few other considerations you might explore.
Consider speaking to some of your veteran sales representatives and ask how the messaging landed with customers. Were the representatives presenting the message as you originally intended? Did the representatives believe in the messaging when they left the sales meeting?
Next, go back over your market research. The messaging may have met with approval in your test groups but did it decisively make your customers purchase your product? At the end of some of my sales presentations, my customers gave every indication our discussion met with their approval only to find they did not actually buy.
The better marketing research question would seem to be which messages resonate with your purchasing customers?
If you are launching a product, you will have to wait a bit to learn this valuable information.
From a sales perspective, do present your market research in your sales meeting presentation. Salespeople will always respond more favorably if they feel there is solid evidence to support a new marketing direction.
Finally, keep lines of communication open between yourself and the sales group.
Honest discussion will do much to turn sales back in right direction.
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
As I write this my travel plans have been disrupted by the major winter storm blanketing Ohio with up to a foot of snow. I happen to be at the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati, which has a major theatrical performance section, which is perhaps what inspired the title above. My son had a competition for merit-based scholarships to the university today and is scheduled for an audition for entry to CCM tomorrow. Now the storm has forced an unplanned overnight stay upon us.
So the weather has forced me to improvise a new plan on the fly and I’ve found an empty classroom to get some work done – including this blog entry.
This past week I’ve been immersed in a variety of sales activities:
- Coaching a National Sales Manager in Michigan on how to develop his team – including better performance in improvising new approaches on the fly within a sales call based on client behavior.
- Preparing a sales training program for next week – including custom modifications based on the unique circumstances of our client in Indiana.
- Selling our services to a new prospect in Dayton, which meant modifying sales call objectives on the fly as my sales team rapidly ascended the learning curve in this first-ever meeting.
Improvisational skill is essential to business survival. Rapidly changing conditions, whether it is the weather or the economy at large, require the ability to think on your feet and adjust as necessary.
This skill demands intelligence, affinity for high-pressure performance and, above all, preparation. My son and I could not stay here in Cincinnati tonight if we had not planned for the situation – he brought his French Horn with him – which he will need for his audition tomorrow.
Adjusting sales call objectives in real time based on client interaction is most effective when preparation lays out a series of options you can adopt based on the situation.
We all have varying levels of intelligence and different employee productivity in high-pressure situations – these are things over which we have little or no control – but we all can control our level of preparation and when the snow hits the fan it is those who have prepared most thoroughly who will come through the storm in the best shape.
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
What a miserable week for Toyota! The gas-pedal recall has the automaker reeling, suspending sales on its most-popular models. Can you imagine a worse public-relations nightmare than nightly news videos showing worried Toyota-owners crying in front of Toyota dealerships that have no answer to the safety crisis?
So here I sit with two Toyotas in my garage – both of which qualify for the recall fix. I’m on a bit of Toyota buying spree, my last three vehicles have been Toyotas. My brand switch to Toyota from American brands did not come easily.
I was born in Detroit and grew up in the Downriver suburb of Grosse Ile. Many of my friends, neighbors and family made a living from Ford, GM & Chrysler and some still do. The brand loyalty of the Detroit area is as firm as ever, if my recent drive up the Southfield Freeway in Detroit is any indication. For about 10 minutes I was the only foreign brand I saw on the heavily congested motorway – it was really quite remarkable.
My last Ford, though, was pretty much a lemon (requiring two expensive transmission replacements before reaching 75,000 miles) and its been Toyotas for me ever since. Of course, Ford reported this week its first annual profit in four years, of the big automakers it seems to have the best momentum right now.
This gas-pedal recall shakes my confidence of bit. If the thing actually fails on one of my cars and I end up flying off a freeway in an uncontrollable acceleration mishap – well, I probably won’t be buying any more Toyotas, if I survive.
By Paul Dumouchelle, Management Consultant, ADVISA
While driving through Bucyrus, Ohio, on my way north to a client located on the shore of Lake Erie, I saw what looked like a classic mini-fiasco in marketing strategy. What caught my attention was an abandoned convenience store, the snow underneath the gas pump canopy barely disturbed, and the promotional space beneath the empty gas-price sign proclaiming “WE ACCEPT FOOD STAMPS.”
It seemed a pathetic, desperate attempt to attract customers to a soon-to-fail business. What is most pathetic, though, is the utter wrong-headedness of the maneuver. Who wants to be seen as a customer of the store that advertises food-stamp acceptance? I suspect food-stamp usage is more tied to grocery stores, in any case, and if so, the message runs counter to established consumer behavior.
I feel compelled to include a disclaimer that I hope this observation is not understood as demeaning in any way to those who use food stamps. In January of 2009, with double-digit unemployment and an economy still suffering from a disastrous recession, food-stamp usage is way up and I’m thankful the tool is there for those that need it.
If the former convenience-store manager saw an opportunity in letting customers know about using food stamps in his store, I would have suggested doing it in a less-prominent way.
In my quick transit through Bucyrus, though, I saw several prosperous convenience stores on my route and the contrast with the food-stamp failure could not have been starker. I took it as another lesson in marketing basics – e.g. focus on your core competency, find ways to add value through service enhancements, product innovation, differentiation, segmentation and communication. Never forget, also, that when you abandon those basics and chase business through a quick-hit discount or a too-obvious and blatant appeal to a government subsidy you are forever cheapening your position – and that is the road to disaster.
