Stop Fooling Yourself: Doing Great Work Is Not a Marketing Strategy

By
May 15th, 2013

A marketing strategy unleashes many new ideasI run into professionals all the time that insist doing great work is the ultimate marketing strategy. They couldn’t be more wrong. The story of Tim and his epiphany demonstrates how this dangerous fallacy is a growth-sapping siren song at countless professional services firms. You might even recognize your own firm.

Doing great work is indeed a sound business strategy, and one that should support your firm’s marketing and sales. But, it doesn’t replace a strategic marketing plan. Since very few of us have the advantage of being the only firm doing quality work, “quality work” is no longer a differentiator. To win consistently, your firm must do what Tim did and clearly articulate why you are better than other options in ways that are meaningful to your target clients.

Tim is president of a commercial contractor. His firm has long prided itself on challenging projects such as laboratories and health care facilities. As a self-described “technical builder,” his company did quite well for many years with very basic marketing: the occasional brochure or postcard and an attractive website that lacked a strategic message. When the 2009 recession devastated the general construction market, Tim’s specialty niche became a beacon drawing many new competitors. At the same time, the “technical” label limited his firm’s own growth by boxing them in from going after new types of projects such as tenant improvements where Tim’s team’s focus on details and schedules were competitive advantages. They were squeezed from outside while constrained from growth. Not a comfortable situation, especially so in a down market.

Being a “technical” builder communicated what Tim’s firm did–to some extent–but didn’t address why clients needed a technical builder, and why Tim’s firm was the best choice. After all, other firms could–and did–say they also were “technical” builders. Tim’s team brought years of experience and a reputation for good work that got them considered for every project they seriously pursued, but brought home an alarmingly small number of contracts in the new, more competitive market. So on top of a lean market with fewer projects, he was losing after investing in a full sales cycle.

Re-thinking one’s marketing strategy to avoid paralysis

The executive team faced a choice: double-down on the approach that built their well-regarded business, but wasn’t working, or try something new. The resulting fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about what to do in these situations paralyzes many firms into deadly inaction (or equally ineffective pursuits of the latest fads.) The correct approach–rethinking one’s sales and marketing strategy–can be difficult, especially when doing so challenges what led to success in the past. At some point, doing nothing–or all the wrong things–places one on a certain path to ruin.

As it turns out, Tim’s focus on pushing his team harder to win contracts blinded him to the real reason his team was falling short at precisely the moment when they most needed success. In Tim’s case, potential clients viewed his firm as a “safe” choice that was more than capable of building the projects he sought. However, he failed to win contracts, not because of poor luck of the draw, but because he failed to affirmatively state why his firm was a better option than others and clearly conveying the specific benefits to the client of selecting his firm.

A re-tooled marketing strategy brings a happy ending

Tim’s story has a happy ending. My interviews of his clients and potential clients revealed that while everyone respected Tim’s firm and its capabilities, potential clients lacked the necessary knowledge of the benefits they would get from selecting him over other builders. Tim’s firm emphasized processes that delivered expected results on time and on budget even under complex and demanding circumstances. Tim’s costs were a bit higher, but the greater certainty was highly attractive to a certain segment of clients. The strategic marketing plan I developed not only emphasized this differentiating information, but it gave Tim’s sales and business development teams new way of prioritizing proposals with the result that they now focus more attention on fewer proposals while winning the lion’s share of what they pursue. When the market eventually rebounded, their new focus produced significantly higher profits with controlled growth rather than a return to the boom or bust of a cyclical industry.

Stop Blowing Big Opportunities: Storytelling Beats Elevator Speeches

By
May 9th, 2013

Storytelling makes for active conversationsIt’s no secret that storytelling engages better than raw facts. Yet the majority of service professionals fail to follow this timeless advice. An elevator speech is not a story, and while it may inform, I rarely hear elevator speeches that make me want to engage with the speaker. Telling memorable stories about your work doesn’t have to be hard if you think in terms of the inevitable questions you get from people you meet. It turns out, highlighting your latest success or new practice area is a great way of answering, “What do you do?” This easy and natural approach doesn’t hang on a catchy hook or an expanded elevator pitch with a beginning, middle and end.

Storytelling makes for better answers

I meet a lot of people in the course of my work. In response to the inevitable question, “What do you do?,” I could tell them I’m a marketing consultant, or better yet, I create strategic marketing plans. This dutifully answers the inquiry in a concise and matter-of-fact way. Normally, good traits in an answer. My brevity is guaranteed not to bore them, and will be far more welcome than an unrelenting, three minute elevator monologue. However, being neither memorable nor particularly informative, it’s a horrible approach that neither engages nor informs.

I could dial it up a notch and reply that I create marketing plans that help service firms grow. It’s better in that now you know something about the types of firms I work with and the macro issue I address. But, since it’s highly unlikely the people I encounter will have an immediate need for my services, it’s doesn’t further my goal of awareness unless they both remember what I do and apply it to their own or others’ situations.

I actually honor the question–and my own interests–better with a dash of storytelling by saying I’m currently working with a commercial builder or professional services firm facing challenges in growing revenue faster than staff. Their sales and marketing is no longer sufficient to get them to where they want to go, so they’re stuck. I help them get unstuck and thrive.

The type of firm mentioned depends on with whom I’m currently working and the person I’m talking to. The answer is intended to provoke further questions, which is how conversations get started. The same approach applied to a web site works to get visitors reading more and digging deeper.

“Who do you work with?”

The balance of the conversation will be about my clients and the types of projects I take on. At some point, I get asked, “Who do you work with?” The more I use illustrative stories and examples rather than generalized facts, the better I connect and the deeper the conversation goes. Contrast the straightforward but weak

“The majority of my clients are professional services firms” with

“One of my recent clients was the CEO of a marketing consulting firm that was struggling with his own marketing and business development. The marketing that had brought success for years was no longer working.”

How much better is the second option? While answering the question about professional services firms, I weave in the bit about being hired by a marketing consulting firm CEO–in theory a competitor–that reinforces the strategic nature of my work, adds credibility, and best of all, makes it all memorable.

Impact of storytelling goes way beyond sales and marketing

The value of stories doesn’t stop once I land a client. Starting with the first introductory meeting, I ask lots of questions. I can create more value for clients by understanding the passions that drive their business. With a window into how they most effectively go to market, I can increase the value I bring and help them effect greater change. My clients are real people that like doing some things, but will resist others. A strategy that one can’t implement–or a client won’t implement for whatever reason–is a bad strategy. Part of my job is assessing the ways a client can improve their marketing. A big factor in my success, and one I think differentiates my offerings, is sniffing out what they will do well, and then incubating the change needed to make it happen.

Whether you are at a trade show or networking event, building a website, or managing a sales force, communicating through stories puts you on the expressway to building the highest-performing relationships.

Would Albert Einstein Call Your Marketing Insane?

By
May 1st, 2013

Einstein on marketing and insanityDid you know Einstein had advice for marketers?   Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.” By Einstein’s definition, many of us are “insane.” In the business world, Einstein is speaking to companies that expect higher revenue, bigger deals or an improved win-rate, yet continue to go to market with the same marketing, business development and sales that isn’t paying off. If what you are doing isn’t working, why double-down?

A big part of the reason for insanity in marketing comes from rapid changes in buyer behavior. The local jack-of-all-trades or generalist law or architectural firm, builder or many types of consultants could thrive in an environment where geographic and social barriers restricted the competitive pool. With technology rapidly erasing these barriers, the local generalist is pitted against a greater variety of specialized firms. This doesn’t end well as most clients prefer someone who specializes in their problem. Generalist firms must adapt by re-positioning themselves around value-based messages and specific expertise, and they need to deliver this message to the modern hang outs of their target audience. They may or may not have to change what they deliver, but they must change how they talk about their work.

Creating sane marketing

Services marketing in today’s information-rich, time-limited environment requires two strategic imperatives (and lots of execution).

  1. Talk about the value you bring, not what you do
    With more options available to clients, competence has become little more than table stakes. When clients expect competence from everyone, it’s no longer a differentiator. Clients demand competence, but what they really want are experts. Beyond the realm of unicorns and fairy dust. it’s extraordinarily difficult to communicate expertise in everything, so be prepared to make strategic choices. Your firm must choose what it wants to be known for–and this often involves hard choices. However, for most people, the harder part is abstaining from areas where you are merely competent, but bring no real expertise. Remaining sane over time requires a feedback loop so you can stop or adjust activities that fail to produce the desired results. As with manufacturing, a commitment to feedback and continual improvement in marketing is a process–and a way of life.
  2. Go where your clients are
    A great message that falls on deaf ears is not a great message. Effective marketing is finding receptive eyes and ears and then engaging them. Anything less is failure. Back in the day, business got done at the golf course or The Club not because there was magic in golf or sipping martinis, but because that is where your clients were. A round of golf bought four to five hours (not counting the 19th hole) of exclusive access in a time where the Internet didn’t highlight your lack of differentiation or provide easy introductions for your competitors. If great marketing is capturing share-of-mind, this was great marketing. This level of access isn’t available anymore, but the fundamental principle about going where your clients are holds fast. Your clients may gather physically at a Rotary meeting or civic events, or they may gather virtually on social media or in special-interest groups. What hasn’t changed is they won’t come to you; you must go to them.

Building a marketing plan

The order one attacks these two strategic objectives is not critical. Ultimately, you must do both to be successful. However, firms that take a value-starved, undifferentiated message to the appropriate venues may become discouraged for lack of results. One generates greater momentum by first developing a value-rich message that connects with your target audience and you and your team can’t wait to get in front of potential clients.

New technology and media may be part of the overall solution, but they aren’t enough. Merely treading water in today’s environment, much less transforming your law, consulting or construction firm into a powerhouse, requires a new strategy. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ or a cloud-based CRM system are, at best, tactics for implementing a winning strategy. A great way to get started is to take the first step and perform a marketing audit evaluating your firm’s current strategy and approach.

5 Ways a Marketing Culture Strengthens Your Company

By
April 24th, 2013

Culture of teamworkMy friend the sales trainer preaches developing a “sales culture” so the entire company thinks about sales. I don’t disagree, but it’s even more important to have a “marketing culture.” A marketing culture is something everyone in the firm can get their heads around. The clerk in accounting may have trouble seeing how she contributes to “sales,” but in a marketing culture, it’s easy to see how her actions support to the firm’s marketing strategy.

What is a marketing culture?

A marketing culture influences everything a firm and the people in it do: the things it focuses on, how it operates, and how it treats clients. We tend to think about marketing cultures more in terms of services firms, but any kind of company can have a marketing culture. Walter Solomon, writing in Forbes, demonstrates the power of a marketing culture at Ashland, the specialty chemical manufacturer.

You can spot firms with strong marketing cultures by looking for companies that:

  • Understand their markets
  • Support the internal skill formation necessary to create value for clients
  • Promote a culture where the purpose of the firm is to profitably create superior client value.

An easier, but less precise way, is to look for highly successful firms with strong cultures. Chances are part of their culture is a marketing culture. Clients experience a marketing culture not through programs, but through the actions of employees, so a marketing culture also reflects an employee-centered outlook.

Marketing as a way of life

A marketing culture starts with a client-centered view of the business, but it doesn’t stop there. I worked with a builder who genuinely loved and valued it’s clients. However, the company worked harder at marketing and business development while getting less success because they lacked a marketing culture at the time.

The extent to which individual employees and staff members identify their contribution to the firm tracks how theyspeak and act regarding about the company. What results is a well-understood culture that celebrates why their firm is better than other options and spotlights their role in it.

Building a marketing culture

Building a marketing culture starts with a deep understanding of your firm’s strategy: why it exists, who it serves, and how it creates value for clients. I’ve had clients try to breeze through this exercise without getting specific. You can’t do that. Like all matters of corporate culture, a marketing culture starts at the top.

If you can’t articulate crisp answers to these questions, your employees won’t be able to either. And, if you and your employees can’t, its a certainty your clients won’t.

Knowing why your firm exists, who it serves and how it creates value is the foundation for good marketing. However, without empowering your employees, your firm will under-perform. Once your people know what they are supposed to do and say, trust them to do it. If they need help, help them acquire the skills and tools needed.

Let them–no, encourage them–to speak and present on topics of interest to your clients. Provide the speaking, presentation or writing training needed to make them confident and effective spokepeople for your company. Implement a CRM solution to enable your firm to manage all your relationships in a coordinated fashion. Most importantly, turn your employees loose. Supersize your company’s footprint in the market by encouraging junior and mid-level employees to build relationships with peer-level people at clients and other firms. You’ve equipped them to represent your firm, so have confidence about what they will say.

Results

What kind of results can you expect from a marketing culture?

  • Happier clients. People like to know where they stand and how their business fits with your business. Somewhat counter intuitively, having a sharp, well-defined focus is helpful even when the client falls partially outside your target. People appreciate clarity.
  • Happier, more engaged employees. Employees that understand the bigger picture do more with less supervision. Think of the impact when everyone is a confident and effective spokesperson. A marketing culture is all about understanding and promoting client value, so when employees talk the talk and walk the walk clients quickly recognize it.
  • More referrals. Even the most satisfied clients typically make few referrals because they don’t know enough about your company. When clients understand how your firm generates client value, referrals take off.
  • Better business decisions. The client-centric nature and broad internal reach of a marketing culture equips decision makers to make decisions that enhance the value you generate for clients.
  • Opens more doors. With so many more qualified “spokespeople,” your firm can go places and do things previously out of reach. From establishing more touch points within your clients’ organizations to more speaking opportunities to serendipitous meetings, a bigger footprint leads to your firm being ready when everyday opportunity knocks.

It’s important to note that a marketing culture is not really about the marketing department. It’s way of life that permeates every corner of the firm. Jerrold, the president of the builder mentioned above pushed back, seeing the entire effort as “touchy-feely” and not tied to revenue and profitability. His initial presentation at an all-hands meeting was flat, but the COO pushed ahead. Within three months, Jerrold was seeing the company through a different perspective and became a major force for his company’s marketing culture. Now, the on-boarding of every new employee, from sales to project superintendents, includes a half day of marketing training.

Getting back to my client Jerrold’s initial concern. In practice, a marketing culture gives back more than it expects from people, and is tied to the full suite of hard metrics. A marketing culture works in part by co-opting other parts of the firm to view their own activities through a marketing lens by assisting them in their jobs.

Are These 3 Common Distractions Ruining Your Marketing?

By
April 10th, 2013

Distractions can ruin your marketingWith so many items demanding your attention–selling, delivering for clients, keeping the office running–one doesn’t have to have Rube Waddell’s penchant for puppies and shiny objects to have your marketing get disastrously sidetracked.

As with any type of distraction, knowing what you are looking for vastly improves your ability to keep distractions in check. Rooting out common distractions when reviewing your marketing (you regularly review your marketing against strategic objectives, right?) will put you way ahead in the game.

Here are three distractions to watch for that will ruin your firm’s marketing.

1. Focusing on the media rather than the message

Regardless of what anyone tells you, your marketing success is not determined by the tools or media used; it’s about value and message. Communicating a great message less effectively is always better than communicating a mediocre message spectacularly. A laser-like focus on communicating why you bring more value to your target clients creates a foundation for improved marketing that resonates across your entire company. By knowing your message and audience exceptionally well, you can focus resources where they work best. If your ideal client spends a lot of time on Facebook, you’d better have a quality presence there. If not, spending scarce resources on Facebook is a waste. If they are on LinkedIn or at a certain conference, you should be there. Regardless, you need a compelling message. Re-focusing and pruning away no longer effective activities frees up the resources you need to do new things.

2. Trying to project value rather than reflecting it

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously quipped on defining pornography, “I know it when I see it.” Your clients are no different when it comes to recognizing quality. Your job is to help them see it so they can recognize it rather than trying to force a definition on them that works for you, but not for them. You’ll find facts more convincing to your team than to a skeptical customer. Of course, if you can put a dollar figure on the value you provide, by all means do so. However, how your client perceives value emotionally often carries the day.

A more productive approach is to help clients feel the value you provide. If your firm offers expert project management (and maybe charges more as a result), encourage clients to think about the peace of mind that comes from well-managed projects with fewer surprises. The building that results or the legal or technical guidance in the end may be very similar to other firms, but the process getting there makes your firm the best choice to work with. The client’s perception of quality reflects their entire experience with your firm, not just end deliverables and how you choose to project quality. When your clients says, “I trust you to have my best interests at heart,” you are delivering quality that is hard to resist.

Your entire organization needs to step up and ensure a quality client experience not because it is the enlightened thing to do, but because reality demands it.

3. Phantom value & the danger of commoditization

When sales reps don’t understand and believe in the value of your offer, they focus on the one lever they do understand: price. Frequent discounting is a sign that your sales reps are not communicating the value you bring, and there is no way to market around this situation. Perhaps your firm is full of poor communicators, but more often than not, they don’t communicate value because deep down they don’t believe it they way they understand it. It’s really hard for senior leadership to come to grips with this one, especially in a time of change.

I’ve met many excellent leaders who are masters at avoiding this topic. Their response is to “add more value” in the form of bundles of products and services that are difficult to sell on their own.  Adding more stuff to your offer is only “added value” if the client sees it that way. Many such bundles end up being give-aways of phantom value because clients don’t see value in the extras.  Unless you consistently win business at higher prices, you are in danger of commoditization.

Retreating to a highly specialized niche with sufficient barriers to entry may help you, but this type of strategy is inherently growth-limiting. If you are too successful or your niche is too large, competitors will flock to the same opportunity and mainstream your niche, leaving you back where you began, competing on price.

Distractions are everywhere

I’m the father of a teenager, so I know how easy it is to get distracted. Distractions can destroy your marketing and leave your firm without the new business it needs to thrive–and too often, even survive.

During marketing reviews, determine that you:

  1. Are focused first on getting the right message out.
  2. Accept that your customers define value, not you.
  3. Are not letting your value be commoditized.

If in doubt, focus on having the right message rather than how many bases you’re trying to cover until you are sure you are firing on all cylinders.

Stop FUD From Paralyzing Your Marketing

By
April 3rd, 2013

Woman biting her nails because of FUD about her marketingThis article was written for MarketingProfs.com. You can read the entire article here.

Most marketers think FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt—is a defensive tactic to scare customers away from a competitive option. It is, but marketers themselves become victims of the same dynamic when rapid change creates an environment where the old ways no longer work but the path forward isn’t clear.

The pace of change within marketing is accelerating along two vectors: better choices, and many more options. Ironically, more and better choices all too often result in paralyzing indecision that can cripple your marketing and business development. It can also drain your budget.

Consider the example of Kim. Her small marketing group hummed along for many years, supporting executives and business development professionals. Everyone considered the firm she worked for a market leader, but when the market hiccuped, its sales dropped and concern mounted. Colleagues and friends asked whether Kim had a social media strategy (“everyone does”). Her CFO sent her articles, copying the CEO, about marketing analytics software used by major consumer brands (Kim’s firm sells B2B). Even Kim’s 16-year-old son piled on, saying that the company website was not optimized for SEO. Lunch with a business school classmate turned social media consultant left Kim overwhelmed by what needed to be done. Of course, with uncertainty in the industry, budgets were tight.

Read the rest of the article on MarketingProfs.com

The Old Marketing Model is Dead: Forrester Gets It Half Right

By
March 26th, 2013

Coffin NailGreat news in the inbox this week. I got an email that Forrester Research is promoting a new report, “Fragmented path-to-purchase demands everywhere marketing.”  In it, Forrester promotes a new sales and marketing model: “Discover, Explore, Buy and Engage.” With this, Forrester makes a significant jump forward, but it’s notable for both what Forrester gets right as well as what it gets wrong.

Reaction to Forrester’s evolution in thinking touches on three ideas:

  1. Re-thinking marketing relationships
  2. Applying marketing fundamentals to these new relationship models
  3. Re-emphasizing that we need to get closer than ever to our customers and clients.

The point of this post is not to dump on analyst firms. If you want that, my friend Mike Mace has a whole chapter in his book Map the Future discussing market analysts. Market analysts like Forrester make their money by being just slightly ahead of the mainstream. They want to sound cutting-edge, but can’t afford to get more than a step or two in front for fear of alienating their customer base. As a result, analyst firms have a  history of missing inflection points and over-reading fads. If they are on-board and it’s not a fad, change is really here.

The folks at Forrester are now saying what I’ve been trumpeting for four years. The widely taught linear sales and marketing models (the traditional sales or marketing funnel) are obsolete and must be replaced with a non-linear relationship-oriented model.

What Forrester Got Right: customer behaviors are non-linear

Forrester’s new model of Discover, Explore, Buy, and Engage deftly leverages the traditional buying funnel built around Awareness, Consideration, Purchase and Loyalty. These models sound comfortably similar, but denote a significant change in thinking. The changes are most pronounced for product-oriented firms.

While Forrester is careful to make their model seem comfortable and similar to the obsolete buying funnel, a better approach is to re-think the model rather than trying to shoe-horn it into the old one. The Lifetime Opportunity Value Equation (LOVE)  model provides an in-depth, but easy-to-understand relationship-based model for understanding customer behavior.

Where Forrester Went Wrong: “everywhere marketing” is budget-draining a path to ruin

Mixing my analyst metaphors, Forrester is caught in the “everywhere marketing” hype cycle that social marketers and media properties are feverishly pitching. Trying to be everywhere means you don’t understand where it is critical that you need to be. It’s taking a shotgun to a marksmanship competition. Social media and networks mean you can be anywhere, but a good marketing strategy informs where you have to be. Focus there and you’ll accomplish more and spend less. A better approach is everyone marketing.

Huge brands can be seemingly everywhere (but they really aren’t) because they have comparatively broad targets. Most of us run or work for companies with much smaller (and hopefully well defined) targets. Marketing beyond this target audience wastes your precious budget. Why would you want to do that?  Just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Three implications of relationship-based marketing models:

  1. You must re-think marketing in terms of relationships. In this respect, the social media movement has it right.  For my professional services clients, the challenge is in scaling up from one-to-one relationships to firm-to-one relationships while still keeping it personal. Mid-sized professional services firms trying to leverage the more “sophisticated” marketing of big firms need to especially take note.
  2. Marketing fundamentals must be applied to any new relationship model. This is where many social media mavens forget businesses exist to create value, not simply to buy the consultant’s services. One of my LinkedIn groups had a breathless discussion of “old marketing” leading to “ELE” (extinction level events). Evolve yes, but you can’t neglect the fundamentals.
  3. Get closer than ever to your customers and clients. You need to do more than merely listen and act, you must know not only what your customers want, but be able to anticipate what they will want in the future. Listening is easy; anticipating needs is considerably harder.

The good news is budget constraints won’t limit you from adopting a relationship-oriented marketing model. You often can get more done with less–as long as you are willing to prune activities that no longer contribute to your success. You have a strong set of criteria for doing this, right?

Four Marketing Changes that Take Courage

By
March 11th, 2013

Marketing takes courageMarketing in today’s environment takes courage according Kathleen Hessert, CEO of Buzz Manager. Courage is the inner power what enables you to face difficulty or danger without fear. In the workplace, it often takes courage to face change and the unknown, especially when conflicting advice comes at you from every side.

In today’s environment marketing takes courage because it is at a crossroads. What’s worked in the past, often doesn’t work any more. With new technology affecting how people and companies interact, social media consultants (and others) are like modern day Sirens, tempting CMOs with promises that often leave them astray. If what you’re doing no longer brings the results you need, the path to the next level of business success will include change. But when knowledge that many of the roads will merely consume your limited resources without providing the promised success, its easy to get frozen into indecision.

Courage, like other decisive action, doesn’t always lead to success. It can just as easily lead to folly. But without courage, you’ll never step beyond the present trajectory that is no longer arcing up. While not a complete list, here are four marketing changes that require courage.

  1. It takes courage to say no to what brought success in the past. It takes even more courage to unemotionally figure out what to keep and what to change. Doubling down on what no longer works is not courageous because that is driven by fear. You are better off walking than catching a ride with fear.
  2. It takes courage to accept that clients define your brand. You can spend a lot telling them what your brand stands for, but you must understand that you are only influencing them. In the best case, you influence them in the ways that you wish. You must recognize that everything your company does defines your brand, not just your branding activities. It’s not what you say, but what you do that counts. For professional services and A/E/C firms, this is especially true. It takes courage to acknowledge–and act on–brand as everything you do.
  3. We’ve all been taught at one point or another to avoid asking questions to which you don’t want to hear the answer. In the court room, this is always true. But, in business it takes courage to ask these questions, and to act on what is said rather than what you want to hear. Questions like: What do my clients really want? What do they think of me? In what situations would they not refer me?
  4. It takes courage to recognize when things aren’t going according to plan, and to act. During the recent (and in some places continuing) recession, countless business leaders didn’t recognize that fundamental changes in the market are here to stay. They blame a drop in sales to a tough economy rather than to a sales and marketing process gone stale. They see falling prices as a sign of increased competition rather than a failure to differentiate their own offerings. They think that making the list of finalists is like missing in horseshoes. One is bad luck. Twice is coincidence. Three times means something is wrong.

In times of uncertainty and change, it’s often easier to follow an appealing pied piper to the promised land of the Next Big Thing than it is to carefully evaluate your business and make the appropriate adjustments. In many cases your business may be fundamentally healthy, but illness in one part is making the entire patient seem sick. If you have a weak brand, you might invest in better services and products. If you have a strong–or potentially strong–brand, but weak sales, up-leveling your sales capability or a strategic marketing plan are likely to bring the highest returns.

Innovation Still Rules: The Death of Michael Porter’s Five Forces

By
February 10th, 2013

Michael Porters Five Forces Model

The recent bankruptcy filing by Michael Porter’s Monitor Group provides a referendum on Porter’s famous Five Forces model and the creation of competitive advantage.

Based on the Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm in industrial organizational economics, Porter developed his model in response to the popularity of what he felt was unrigorous of SWOT analysis. Despite some criticism, the Five Forces became a staple of MBA programs and many consultants because it suggested one could engineer the Holy Grail of business, namely “sustainable competitive advantage.” Monitor Group’s bankruptcy implies clients concluded that the economic value of the Five Forces in the real world is much less than the promise.

For many, Porter’s approach supplanted Peter Drucker’s emphasis on the customer with a more quantitative-feeling strategy of protecting firms from competitive rivals. While the Five Forces have been losing ground in the marketplace of ideas for a while, those of us who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s remember how dominant an idea they represented in their heyday.
Read more »

Marketing Stories: Does Great Marketing Require a Narrative?

By
December 10th, 2012

Homer, the greatest story teller of all timeA recent discussion on LinkedIn asked this very question. The conversation split with many siding that  marketing stories or narratives are a tool appropriate for specific situations. For familiar consumer products like the new iPhone5 or the Toyota Corolla, the conventional thinking holds that you don’t need a story unless you are targeting a new audience such as pitching the iPhone to uncool people or the Corolla to the wealthy.

I disagree. Marketing stories are always valuable.
Read more »

« Older Entries