A friend of mine was trying to create a press ad to be released in the Times of India for his office-use products. Since his company was medium sized, the press ad would have burnt a hole in his pocket and he was keen to have my advice on the ad.
When I entered his office, my friend, his wife and some of his managers were seated around the table. A smart client servicing executive and a creative person from the ad agency were also there. The discussion centred around which layout, which headline and which model was good. My freind hoped I will be helpful in coming up with the right layout, right headline etc.
I said I would like to know a little more about the market before I gave an opinion on these matters. I asked who, around the table, had gone out and met a potential customer during the last 6 months for the purpose of selling the products. I was surprised to find that no one had done that !
That stopped me in my tracks because I wanted to ask relevant questions like
- what are the top 3 concerns and pain points of his customers?
- what features in his products will make his customers feel they made the right choice?
- what would make his customers feel they made a better choice buying my friend’s products than of his competitors?
I give a lot of importance to what the business tells its salesmen / ad agencies to say to their customers - either verbally or in print. Many would think it is best to leave these matters to the advertising or marketing executives and the agencies. I differ. I feel even the CEO should sit in on these meetings once in a while to know how the company is coming across to its customers.
It is indeed a matter of grave concern when your company cannot tell your salesmen or your ad agencies what they should say to your potential customers. When you do not know what to tell your customers to convince them to buy your products, your customers begin telling you that they will buy your products only if the price is right - and that is the starting point of decline in margins.
It is a serious matter : if you are not profitably priced, your ability to invest in new products and new capabilities - as well as in repairing and renewing your existing business - comes under pressure. And, although I have raised this issue in the context of selling and advertising, this is only the tip of the iceberg ! The real issue is far deeper.
How will you know what features to put in your products and hence what kind of equipment and factory you should have? How will you know what kind of service is needed and hence what kind of service network to have? How will you know what kind of people you need to hire and what kind of training and objectives to give them? In fact, you may not know how to run any part of the business unless you are clear about what kind of customers you want to serve and how.
This is where the Positioning comes in. But I will talk about it in some other blog.
6 comments:
Very rightly pointed out Sir..This approach of understanding the need of the customer and building each business processes accordingly is ideal and should be followed practically.
Say my company makes a product, for example a Power Amplifier, that targets a segment previously ignored by the larger manufacturers because of low volumes. I want to know what the market size is for my product. Isn't it equally important to speak with Distributors, gauge Competitor strengths and try and estimate market size based on their feedback? Speaking to one/two/small number of customers may give me valuable feedback in terms of their requirements and product features but it does not tell me the size of the market. Saying "everyone is a customer" is a classic mistake and top-down analyses in this fashion are also often incorrect. Your thoughts?
It is a useful article, especially for those who sell services. Unlike products where you can see and feel, selling a service is like selling a promise. Advertising in media becomes very expensive and unpredictable.
If he is selling an office use product then it would make more sense to hire an Sales Execuive to sell his product door to door to offices and get a feedback from him regarding the customer mindset about the product they are selling and improve upon the product.Once the product is accepted in the market he can now go placing an ad on the newspaper.
Very True !!
As they say, advertisements and publicity stunts only add value to the product or the service. It cannot replace the same. The product or the service first needs to satisfy the customer requirements and there the concept of Positioning comes in handy.
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