Finding Profitable Clients

When working with company‘s that have sales revenue and profit challenges one of the first places to look and diagnose the root cause is within their sales numbers, specifically the sales pipeline. The sales pipeline typically reveals the symptoms associated with the revenue and profit challenges a company is currently experiencing or will experience. One key metric to examine is the win rate, which is the total revenue sold divided by the total revenue sold, lost and disengaged. The win rate percentage provides a factored view and insight into predicting a company‘s future sales performance. Conversely, it also reveals areas of deficiency that are impacting or will impact sales performance. Another key area is looking at how opportunities enter the pipeline. Do they enter from demand creation (the proactive pursuit of sales revenue) or demand management (reactive pursuit or sales revenue from leads, referrals and bluebirds).

Experience has shown that revenue challenged companies rely much more on demand management than on demand creation to generate sales revenue typically resulting in an unbalanced 80/20 split.

Companies with an unbalanced and unpredictable revenue stream need to ask themselves the following question: Where do we want our sales revenue to come from? When applying conventional wisdom, the answer to the question can be found by identifying your company‘s —ideal client profile“ or those clients most likely to receive significant value purchasing your product and/or service based on the alignment of qualifying characteristics and attributes between your company and the prospective client. However, going a step beyond conventional wisdom and applying biblical wisdom can help you identify not only your most profitable clients but also your most sustainable clients. The biblical wisdom referenced is found in the book —Beyond Babel“ by Gerald R. Chester, Ph.D. regarding the biblical principle of equal yoking specifically related to C4 to identify your —ideal C4 client.“

Since most companies typically do not select their clients, it is even more difficult to find C4 clients. The components of C4 include a company‘s:
1. Calling
2. Character
3. Capabilities
4.Commissioning

Calling Speaks to the heart of the company.
Will your value proposition bring lasting value to the prospective client?

Character Is the accepted worldview of a company.
Does the prospective client‘s company values and operating principles align with your company?

Capabilities A company‘s ability to assess the value proposition.
Do your services and/or products facilitate the successful completion of tasks or business challenges that can‘t be effectively addressed by your prospective client?

Commissioning The external invitation and permission to speak into a client.
Do you have the affirmation and confidence to fulfill your client‘s needs?

In conclusion, the alignment of C4 between your company and your prospective client(s) will not only help establish your most profitable C4 relationships but will also build a sustainable and predictable revenue stream

Need help growing revenues? Contact an interim marketing executive today at info@oneaccordpartners.com or visit www.oneaccordpartners.com.

Photo via flickr

Answering The Critical Marketing Question: Why Should I Buy From You?

Marketing executives are currently facing a sales climate that is tougher than ever. Competition comes from areas until recently unseen – offshore/international suppliers, internet “virtual suppliers”, ”knock –off” manufacturers, etc. Yesterday, when I called technical support for a well known US computer manufacturer, the call was routed seamlessly to New Delhi (toll free, no hold time, and an accurate solution)!

So, what differentiates your company and the products or services that you provide? It’s a given that you must provide value, high quality, and on-time delivery. Companies define Value as cost effective solutions to their needs. Your buyer or decision maker will define Value as whatever creates a personal “win” for him/her. This may not always be lowest price and shortest lead time. It may be favorable payment terms, or improved product performance, or consigned hardware. The key to knowing what buyers want and creating long term sales is the relationships that you build with your clients. Companies don’t buy from companies, people buy from people. Even the most process-regulated purchasing decisions are determined in part by personal experience and preference.

Relationships offer an opportunity for you to be proactive rather than reactive. If your first knowledge of a selling opportunity is the RFQ, you’ve had no time to influence the specifications, fine tune your product offering, or generate internal buy-in for the project. The buying decision has been all but made by the client, and you’re not in the driver’s seat. Relationships with decision makers invite early participation in the solution phase of the project. You are considered more of a strategic team member, creating a collaborative solution to the clients needs.

So how do marketing executives ensure these relationships are created? Positive relationships with your clients don’t necessarily require late night cigar parties, all day golf outings, or junkets to Hawaii, although genuine friendships never hurt! Relationships take time to build and are based on trust. Trust means you don’t sell what you can’t produce; you provide true Value Propositions and solutions which may not always directly benefit your company; you follow through on commitments. A client will respect the answer “we don’t make that product, but I can tell you who does” much more than “we are experts for all your needs”. Remember, you can only lose your credibility once. Protect your integrity and trust as if your business depends on it!

Photo by Naystin

Finding the Way to Tap Consumer Desire

by Peter L. Klinge, Jr.

Marketing advances product innovation by being the catalyst across an organization’s sales, operations, and product development functions to offer customers products that satisfy desires. In developed economies product marketing is not ‘need based’ but desire driven. For example, soap buyers want to know if it does more than just clean, they also want to know that it has deodorant, scents, etc.

Desire creates the opportunity for innovation and evolution of products and services. Today’s desires become tomorrow’s needs as the basic standard of living improves. The telephone evolved from the 19th century as a luxury-invention to become a basic household necessity in the 20th, and by the turn of the 21st became the mobile communications standard.

What’s the difference between companies that focus on selling units versus companies that sell value in customer relationships? For example, what’s different about Apple’s phenomenal success with the iPod and the MP3 players from Creative Labs, and numerous others that were first to market years earlier?

Companies like Apple link marketing to their business objectives in a way that leads and drives customers to shift from a need staple to must have cachet or brand consumers aspire to. There’s value that transcends the consumer’s rational view of an item to a more emotional state of demand for a branded product with consumer value and importance typically higher than the unit’s price point.

By contrast what value has the American automotive industry promoted with low employee pricing and rebates? They drive transactional unit sales at any cost and discount the value of their car brands so that the main reason to buy becomes price. This is a downward revenue and profitability sales spiral that subsidizes the industry in the short run but which in the long run destroys its economic value and consumer relevance.

Consistently successful companies e.g. Pepsi, P&G, Apple, Nike, Intel, BMW represent a group that understand how to deliver big ideas that build continuous selling relationships to promote value at higher margins. These companies typically stand apart and outperform their category because they are able to focus on two key in-balance factors: Vision balanced with Pragmatism (or mission), and Leadership balanced with Teamwork.

Vision shapes the relative merits and possibilities of a company’s products to the target consumer. Vision evaluates how the company’s product projects itself to the person who buys it; understands the elements of the product that tap into the consumer personality and response to motivate consumption.

The big idea communicates the clarity of the vision. The consumer sees it in the advertising and product experience. To move forward a vision must resonate with the team that creates the marketing if it’s to communicate well to external stakeholders. The vision is not realizable if not balanced with pragmatism.

Pragmatism is grounded in simplicity and rationalism so that the product makes sense to the consumer. While vision is the broad view of some future realization, pragmatism helps to define the product for the consumer in the here and now. If a consumer can be forward thinking in adopting a new product while avoiding the ‘bleeding edge’ moniker of experimentation and possible recklessness, then there’s a big idea to building sales velocity through the wider market.

Leadership guides across an organization to help it rise above the banal and uninspired. Leadership maintains the focus on the vision as the team develops their marketing concepts. Communication of what is possible is essential to create the buy-in among the team members so that their energies and creative talents will produce the big idea that consumers will care about.

Teamwork executes the big idea by understanding the combination of vision, pragmatism, and leadership. It’s in the team that the idea is given life and possibilities. The members are the sounding board for each other. They evaluate the original vision against their ideas to determine the difference between consumer aspiration and meaningless selling.

The team is where multi-disciplined talents combine to produce the marketing concept with salient and novel communications that sell.

When all four elements are in balance, then Big Ideas are realized to deliver customer satisfaction, personal reward, and company success.

Peter Klinge Jr. is a Principal with OneAccord & can be reached at Peter.Klinge@OneAccordPartners.com. This is an excerpt from the Big Idea Series from Peter Klinge. © MMV Peter Klinge. All Rights Reserved.

Photo by goodrob13

Creating and Connecting Your Brand to the Customer

Published by OneAccord.

It’s important to connect your brand identity to your customers and what you can do for them. Therefore, your design style, look and feel, photography, and all other visual design elements that represent your company’s identity should start with your customer. Does your company’s visual identity make a meaningful and relevant connection with your customers? Does the style or font and color treatment reflect the industry or style of business and products and services you offer – including perhaps how they might be used by your customers?

Let’s say you run a business that specializes in artist supplies and tools. You might agree that to make a good connection with customers, your business identity should have a logotype style that appeals to and resembles artistic styles that are familiar to that audience. A creative, colorful, and artsy image would seem most appropriate. But imagine that your artist supply store had something like the big blue striped “IBM” symbol on it. The IBM logo is so well known, and its association with the computer industry so strong, that even if you added the words “Art Supply Store” in big bold type next to this logo your customers will be very confused. Most likely, you’ll not attract too many artists to your store. The style and color of the IBM logo is well suited to the big company corporate image that it represents.

Now let’s imagine what the IBM logo might look like if we were to intentionally adapt it for the purpose of promoting an artist supply store. What if the stripes in the IBM logo were each a different bright color representing all the colors in the rainbow? And what if the “M” was stylized and also served as an artist’s cup holding a few paint brushes, each with a dab of brightly colored paint sticking up out of the cup? Would this version of the IBM logo on an artist supply store be more appropriate and appear more relevant to customers who are artists? Even if the name was “IBM”, the image and color scheme and use of creative elements that match the customers’ purpose would make this a far more appropriate and attractive store front. The use of color is a very powerful tool for communicating and establishing a direct connection with your customers.

This example also illustrates that your brand identity and the connection that it can establish with your customers can transcend business customers into the consumer realm – as long as you stay true to your brand promise and reputation. In the computer services industry, IBM is one example of a brand that has recognition far beyond the large business customers that it primarily serves.

When designing an identity, care should be taken to examine all the ways in which that identity will be communicated to your customers and the market place in general. This includes sales and marketing collateral, promotional materials, advertising, business stationery, web sites, product designs and packaging, trade show displays, software user interfaces, business cards, and so on. A consistent design style should be applied and adapted to each one of these areas so that not only will the name and logo be recognizable, but the customer will become familiar with the look and feel of each of these elements and they will recognize them as part of the same company. In essence, the customer experience across all of the visible touch points and interfaces with your company should have a consistent style and familiarity that enhances the instant recognition of your business and simplifies the customer’s relationship with you.

Don’t make the mistake of designing very complex looking marketing collateral and web site designs that feature your products in great detail, including screen shots of software, detailed technical descriptions, design look and feel elements that are derived from your own internal business – labs, production, factory floor or executive offices. You would be missing the point of creating all of this communication in the first place: to effectively establish long term relationships with customers.

In the industry for your products and services, there may be many existing elements like symbols, colors, or other visual images that are very familiar to the people who buy and use the appropriate products and services. Every community has such elements that connect the people in that community together. Your mission is to find those elements, adopt them within your identity, and become an integral part of the community you to intend to serve. Your customers will not only want to include you in everything they do, they will have a hard time thinking of themselves without you when your competitors come knocking.

Wells Fargo’s counteroffer for Wachovia has spurred Citigroup to file a complaint today to the New York Supreme Court.

From The New York Times:

“The root of the conflict is the interruption of Citigroup’s plan, announced a week ago, to buy Wachovia’s banking operations for $2.2 billion, or $1 a share. That deal was brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, whose officials worried that Wachovia could collapse. Regulators agreed to pick up losses over $42 billion incurred by Citigroup after the transaction.”

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