Disrupting the Loop

No, I’m not talking about a physics or chemistry experiment. I’m describing a very successful sales strategy that is used every day by many and that you can use at the right time to help you succeed when competing with another provider.

Many of us have seen professional engagements that we thought were “a sure thing” unravel at the last moment.  Often, the client brings up an idea or concept that had not been part of our original discussion. Frequently, this happens when a competitor has successfully shifted the decision loop away from areas of our strength to areas of his strength.  Sales pros have a name for this—Disrupting the Loop—and it works.

Take a look at this video of a BASKETBALL team using a FOOTBALL play on the court to score. The other team looks totally sandbagged! They weren’t expecting it, weren’t ready to respond, and were unsuccessful in defending against it. 

How does this work in real life?

One client shared with me how he used this technique to his advantage:

“I was competing with another and larger firm for an O & M (Operations and Maintenance) training contract. I had the advantage, I thought, since I knew all the operators and used to be one myself. But my competitor had raised the issue of perceived quality: he could offer a group of trainers so that the material would be presented by several people, with different styles, and at a competitive price. My contact pointed out that learning styles are diverse and suggested the wisdom of offering operators training from a team of trainers.

“I successfully countered that having the training presented by ONE trainer would make it easier to film and edit the training so that it could be shown to operators who might be hired later, thus reducing the cost of future training sessions . Filming or remote viewing, however, was not part of the original RFP. My having successfully changed the discussion let me continue to compete for the business, which I ultimately won.”

Early in my sales career, I sold Rx health products in hospitals. I hated it. Everyone was forced to follow the same procedure and had the same access; in other words, we all had to play the same game. If you all start from the same place, speak for the same amount of time, and offer roughly the same alternatives, there’s really no competition. In the Rx business, the situation is even worse: price and even “product claims" are controlled by regulation.  I like having the freedom to call a football play on the basketball court.  Don’t you?

Just because you are selling professional services (training, legal representation, engineering studies or drawings, etc.) to a long standing,friendly client, or selling into a situation that you have worked on for weeks, don’t assume that you won’t have competition. You still need to SELL your expertise, capability, and unique abilities to your client. If the opportunity is a great one, there will probably be at least someone else also pitching for the contract.  Ask yourself how can you present yourself in a unique way.  If you are smaller, or newer, or not as well known as your competition, how can you frame the challenge in a way that will play to your strengths, not your weaknesses?

One powerful way to frame your challenge is to reframe it!  When you disrupt the loop, you no longer compete on product, performance, price—all those areas in which you may offer no advantage.  Be creative: envision a scenario in which you DO possess some unique merits—and you’ll come out on top.

Tell Me Your Story and I Will Trust You and Buy from You

Charles Bridge in Prague by Martin Procharzka

“What I did during my summer vacation?” You’ve probably had to tackle this subject in an essay for school. I feel that’s what I’m doing now. My wife and I traveled 6000 miles, and I learned a lot of interesting facts about the places we visited., I also re-discovered a truth far away that was in front of my face all the time.

Luda and I visited three Eastern European countries that had long been on her “bucket list”-- Hungry, Austria, and the Czech Republic. It was a fascinating trip, full of exciting places to visit, new places to walk, and great restaurants (our family grew tired of all the restaurant pics I kept posting on Facebook). But of all its sights, sounds, and tastes, I will remember the longest the 20 minutes I spent with Martin Procharzka. 

Luda and I were walking across the Charles Bridge—the oldest bridge in Prague—and confronting vendor after vendor who had set up small souvenir stands on the bridge.   I stopped to admire a photograph and asked, “This isn’t your work, is it?” The middle-aged man answered in the affirmative. We began to discuss photography in general and the details of how he had captured this amazing image of this  famous bridge.

“I came out here early, around 5 AM, to get a good spot for the foot traffic. There was just a dusting of snow. After I had set up, snow really started to fall, and I got this great shot.”

Martin’s story behind the shot anchored my visit to Prague, made the whole adventure more real for me, and certainly more memorable. It also tied into the bigger story of a city and a people released at last from the confines of their previous system and free again to be creative individuals pursuing their dreams.

The power of narrative is a great truth that we sometimes forget as business people when we focus on our accomplishments, customer testimonials, or exciting product features. We all need to remember the “story” that helps our customers anchor our “truth” and remember it.  All businesses, but especially service businesses, can benefit from becoming skilled in telling their story to customers and prospects. 

But it is not just about telling your story. You need to link your story to a bigger theme that resonates with your prospect or customer. Storytelling marketing pioneer Michael Margolis has made this point in his book, Believe Me! You can download a free PDF copy with this link. 

Margolis believes that “Only when people can locate themselves inside [your] story will they belong and participate in your narrative.” By “participate,” he means remembering and retelling.  Sometimes it’s tough for business owner to overcome our own pre-conceptions about our businesses and think about them in a new way to harness the power of storytelling.

One of our engagements from several years ago illustrates the point. A computer firm in Silicon Valley was puzzled. No matter how much it promoted the new and improved versions of its industry- leading hardware, its existing customers—the largest businesses, with the biggest networks—kept buying at the same rate, year after year. Why were they not responding to the firm’s considerable investment in marketing? We did a research study to find out and determined that, in most cases, the customers were most influenced by the firm’s service and not its hardware, which was expected to keep pace with market trends.  Since the firm’s service offerings had not changed but were generally satisfactory, the customer buying habits remained unchanged.

By combining this Voice of the Customer data with powerful storytelling, the company added new service offerings to make its brand of hardware and services indispensable and part of a compelling larger story of a labor-saving, time-saving, and money-saving solution. The results?  This firm grew its hardware AND service revenue and profits so much that within a year it was acquired at a large premium.

As you think about how to grow your business in the coming months, think about your story. How will you tell it to make it engaging? How will you link it to a larger theme?

                 

If We’re Going to Write, Let’s Do It Well!

Business owners small and large often find themselves facing a blank page as they summon their wits to write about their business, their latest promotion, or even an important communication to a customer or partner. Experienced business writer and Service for Profit team member, Kathy Wilson, knows that writing is hard, and she’s taken the time to give all of us the following “tips of the trade” this Holiday Season:

By

Kathy Wilson - Writer/Editor

             

Whenever you find yourself composing a piece of marketing collateral, whether it’s a product brochure, white paper, case study, or customer e-mail, you want to keep your message as concise and tightly crafted as possible. At the same time, you want to deliver something that will communicate key messages effectively, hold your audience’s attention, and hopefully have the desired effect (e.g., call us, go to our website, buy our product, take advantage of this special offer).

This means making careful word choices and packing in as much rich and impactful content as possible. What you choose to include, to emphasize, and to leave out should start with what you believe will most motivate your audience. Is it general product information, competitive differentiation, ways to achieve increased efficiencies, lower costs, a better customer experience? Maybe it's some combination of these?

Once you understand your audience’s key drivers, you can get down to the job of carefully crafting your message. This can present many choices but your primary filter should always be focused on relevance, brevity, and impact.
 
For example, let's say that the company you're writing for offers products aimed at simplifying operations, improving the customer experience, and reducing costs. How do you write the most compelling message around these themes?

You could just use short, easy to digest bullets to summarize the company's value proposition:

·         Simplifies operations

·         Improves the customer experience

·         Improves the quality of service deliverables

·         Helps reduce costs

·         Helps optimize systems and processes

·         Improves customer satisfaction

·         Creates a more engaging customer experience

But now watch what happens when we dig a little deeper. How does the company (and its products) do these things, and what additional benefits might be gained? Here are some alternate versions that illustrate this point:

·         Automates repeat processes to reduce complexity and simplify operations (or)

·         Automates repeat processes to improve operational efficiencies and service quality

·         Lowers costs with automation and operational efficiencies to enhance ROI

·         Cuts issue resolution times with complete visibility across integrated service delivery platforms and processes

·         Supports expanded services to improve customer satisfaction and brand loyalty

·         Integrates across social media to deliver a more accessible and engaging customer experience

Finally, there is one more thing we should be thinking about as we are writing and self-editing our copy—namely, can any of our key benefits be quantified? If they can, let’s do it. The impact will be much higher, and your credibility much greater than just stating features and benefits in generic terms.

·        15% savings over competitive solution without compromising speed or quality

·         24% reduction in manual processing for improved operational efficiencies

·         33% reduction in issue resolution time with support system integration and company-wide reporting

·         50% increase in website visitors; 18% increase in conversions

Sound easy? Give it a try the next time you’re facing that blank page. Making things as concise and impactful as possible usually requires two or three passes as you tighten and refine your message. But when you find those perfect word combinations, it will have been well worth the effort.

     

[Kathy is an experienced business communications writer, residing in Silicon Valley and is available for marketing communication projects when you can’t summon your Muse. You can reach her at khwilson@sbcglobal.net. A version of this short article also appeared in the blog published by the Envision Technology Marketing Group of San Jose where Kathy is a frequent contributor]

All the News That's Fit to Print

Your newsletter might not be the NYT, but your customers may love it.

Do they call you and say, “I didn’t know you did that!” Do you get more referrals and inquiries within a week of your newsletter’s reaching its audience? Do you get calls for offers in newsletter issues from 2-3 months ago? Do professional partners thank you for featuring them in your newsletter by referring clients to you?

If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” then it's time to spend time tuning up your newsletter and making it more a more effective tool for boosting profits, retaining and attracting clients, and enhancing engagements. Fortunately, we can help you with those goals.

Newsletters can be difficult to produce consistently 

The only thing that most small businesses agree on about newsletters is that they can be a pain to produce month after month. The attention demanded to get out each issue, the rush to collect submissions from contributors or write and edit copy yourself, and the absence of consistently measurable results that justify all the hassle frequently combine to sound the death knell for these marketing projects after a year or so. 

To make your newsletter effective, try these ideas:

Focus on one category of readers to keep content relevant If you focus on a single target (like “customers” or “donors” or “business partners”), it’s likely that your readers will respond well to your content. After all, your content was created with your readers in mind. Of course, this may mean that, if you have multiple constituencies to keep informed, you will need multiple newsletters. Making sure you serve the unique needs of each group of readers will pay off in successfully communicating your message. One measure of such success is reader retention, or the measure of people that open, read and react to your newsletter each month. Indeed, when it comes to reader retention, content is KING. Many customers will learn about some aspect of your business they didn’t already know about and become an instant repeat buyer.

For instance, I use Express Printing in Sunnyvale California for much of my business printing. It does a great job for me. Recently I read in its newsletter that it now offers me QR codes that can be printed on my marketing materials to link them to a mobile-friendly webpage to increase my click through and conversion rate. Not only have I added the QR codes to material for my own business, but I felt great about referring the folks at Express to my clients.

Full of Fun—Better Than “Strictly Business” Don’t just focus only on yourself and your business; include some content that’s fun to read. Newsletter expert Jim Palmer said is a recent seminar, “Adding fun content is a great way to extend the shelf life of your newsletter. People keep it around if it is fun.” Types of “non-business content” he recommends are:

• Calendar items
• Work tips
• Articles on The Work/Life Balance
• Healthy living
• Vacation tips

Of course, you don’t have to write this additional content yourself. Jim offers it for syndication, as do other vendors.

Dual distribution -- paper and electronic For most of my clients, I produce my regular eNewsletter and they like it just fine. But for some who don’t work in front of a computer every day or might be more open to receiving the communication in a different format, I also distribute a limited number of copies printed in paper, mailed bulk mail. While paper newsletters have less competition in the mail box than do emails in the INBOX, 1-6 pieces vs. 50 electronic emails/day, and tend to have a longer shelf life, they are more expensive for me to send since I must pay for printing and postage. I let my customers choose which they want to receive.

Consider using a BLOG as your electronic newsletter distribution vehicle Many of us use an email content management system to mail out our eNewsletters. Tools like Swiftpage or Constant Content are handy for this since we can be alerted to who opened the attachments and which ones bounce, and our opt ins and opt outs are automatically tracked for us. But Howard Sewell, of Spear Marketing, recommends using a blog tool, like Wordpress, as your distribution vehicle for eNewsletters:

“It allows you to post content on a more timely basis, so that news items aren’t always weeks old by the time someone reads them in newsletter form. It permits comments, likes, social sharing, and other interactive functionality that you don’t get with a simple email newsletter. It allows for greater flexibility in how people choose to subscribe: via email, Twitter, RSS, or Facebook. And perhaps most importantly, it extends the shelf life of newsletter content well beyond the inbox, by allowing it to live on in search results where it can continue to generate traffic, subscribers, and sales leads.”

Share the pain to increase the gain. Sounds catchy, doesn’t it? What I mean is that you should not take on the total responsibility for writing, editing, fact checking, and posting or formatting for printing all the content yourself. Try to identify sources for content (experts within your company or organization, guest contributors, and even customers, i.e., testimonials or case studies). Setting up an editorial calendar, with major and minor articles slotted 3-4 months in advance, will help you solicit guest submissions with plenty of lead time. You can also get help producing your newsletter. Check your Chamber of Commerce for marketing communication vendors in your area. 

Newletters are worth it! They can make you money and help your service business grow. Now’s a great time to revitalize the newsletter you have or take steps to start publishing one.

Your Marketing Plan: Make 2012 a Successful Year!

When I was growing up in Connecticut, I would always know when my family was about to take a trip: My dad would announce that he had received the TripTik^R. This customized set of maps from AAA, still used today, had been assembled in a package of easily “flipable  pages” to guide our auto travel. These maps would keep us on the right road, help us choose excellent stopping points, and help us avoid hazards like road construction and speed traps. To Dad, it was unthinkable to take a long road trip without his TripTik.

You business needs a TripTik, too. Your thoughtfully prepared marketing plan fills the same function for your business. Just as a TripTik links your starting point with your destination, your marketing plan requires identifying your specific business goals for the year.  The process of creating a marketing plan then fills in the blanks by answering these questions: how will you get there? What strategies and techniques will you employ? How will you spend your resources” Who will assist you?  If you want to achieve your objectives—and you do!--It is just smart business to invest in your own success by spending giving some time and thought to how your marketing plan for next year will enable you to achieve them. 

Start by asking and answering questions.

Identify your goals. Goal setting can be hard, especially if they required that you must reach a consensus with others. Professional facilitators frequently use a technique called “back casting” to surface ideas from groups that have trouble formulating goals. Here’s how it might work:

 Imagine it is Thanksgiving Day 2014. A full 2 years have passed!  We’re all a little greyer or a little wider in all the wrong places. We’re going around the table talking about what has gone well and how much we appreciate the breaks we’ve had. When it is your turn, you rise and begin describing the specifics in your life, particularly in your business. How have things improved? What has changed for the good? What new challenges are you convinced you can surmount? 

Psychologists tell us that we always underestimate how fast things can change and that the more we can use our imagination; the easier it is for us to come up with new ideas.  By focusing on a future date that seems far into the future, we allow out imagination to seek out-of-the-box ideas. Yet the reality is that, once unleashed, our businesses are capable of moving quickly to achieve new goals and dreams: A goal for 2014 frequently becomes a plan for 2012.

Goals are important, as are the traditional Who, What, When and Where – and “how much” questions. A SWOT (Strengths,Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is always part of the marketing plan that I develop for clients. This is also where competitive research can be helpful. Are other companies serving similar markets or making a similar product? What do their offerings look like? How are they priced? Is their marketing working for them?  It used to be very difficult to get this information, but the Internet makes collecting this info easier. What about data that you can’t get on the internet or by interviewing customers?  There are still ways to collect and use competitive information that are affordable and practical for small businesses. I recommend the Entrepreneurs Guide to Market Research by Anne Wenzel, which will be available in January 2012.

Giving thought to where you want to end up—your business goals—will inform the next steps, which determine how you make your journey – that is, how you execute your marketing plan. Planning obviously involves more than just setting direction. It also is the time to decide to focus on one or more target markets, the strategy to be employed, and the techniques that you will use to carry out that strategy.  By “strategies” I mean, given a particular target market, how you will implement your goals.  Typical strategies include Thought leadership, Pricing adjustment (Impact Pricing), or service productization. Once you have developed a working strategy, typically it is important to plan for a variety of techniques to realize your goal; these can include trade shows, websites, telemarketing, and email, to name a few. It is important to employ a mix a techniques since not all customers respond well to the same technique .

“How Much” can only be answered once you know the “where,” “who,” and  “what.” Understanding the value of a new customer and the underlying cost of what you are selling (in labor or materials) will allow you to judge what you should “pay” to acquire a new customer.  

 

Finally, it is important to build into your marketing plan certain “check-in” points.  These represent opportunities to correct mistakes, revise assumptions, and correct for drift away from your objective. My dad’s TripTik consisted of specific pre-printed pages. Although it, too, is your guide to achieving your business destination, your marketing plan is a living document and will need to change with events that affect your market and the lives your customers are living.