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

Designing a Brand Identity

by Patrick Smyth

Don’t spend too much money and time developing psychological profiles and conducting research of competitors, or allowing inside executives to invent colors that would make them feel good about the company. It’s more important to connect your 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. Further, if your brand identity is strong enough, you may even be able to extend the values of your brand from business products or services to consumer products. In the computer services industry, IBM is one example of a band that has recognition far beyond the large business customers that it primarily serves.

How about an example from the heavy equipment industry that can translate directly into a consumer product? Almost every major construction project begins with earth moving, and perhaps one of the most recognizable images on-site during that phase is some big yellow piece of machinery with the word “CAT”, for Caterpillar, painted boldly in black on it’s side. For many people, the name “Caterpillar” is almost synonymous with “bulldozer”, and the big yellow machines are their icon. Imagine if Caterpillar decided, as some of the automobile manufacturers have done, to put their brand name on a mountain bike.

Can you imagine what a Caterpillar branded mountain bike would look like, and what characteristics it might have? The frame is most likely painted bright yellow with a wide cross-bar on which is printed “CAT” in big black letters. The frame might be made of light weight alloys to keep the bike light and easy to handle, but the tubular framing might be oversized and deliberately solid and large in appearance. You also probably imagine this to be a very heavy duty, rugged, mountain-traversing, machine. You could easily trust that this bike will perform as you would expect a rugged mountain bike to perform, especially one carrying the “CAT” name. People would buy this bike feeling that they can conquer the mountains that they aim to ride over, with the confidence that their heavy duty “CAT” will get them there. The connection to your brand can be extended into new products and new markets as long as you stay true to your brand promise and reputation.

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 you competitors come knocking.

Photo by tankawho

Interim Executive Question: How to Establish B2B Brands

Question: How do business-to-business companies go about establishing their brand identity and loyalty?

Businesses commonly assume that their marketing department will communicate their brand through advertising, literature, and promotional activities. While these are important, they are just one small dimension of the totality of communication and interaction that defines the overall customer experience. Indeed, if this was the only effort to implement and communicate a brand identity and build brand loyalty, then by definition it will conflict with all the other communications systems that already exist in the company. This will contribute new sources of communication inconsistencies (“noise”), add new costs to overcome them, and reduce the return on the investment in defining and developing the brand identity in the first place. Clearly the brand promise should be defined and measured across all of the communications systems of the company, including internal reward and recognition systems to encourage employee behavior in accordance with the brand values.

For example, have you ever heard in your business that the customer was sold something that differs from your ability to deliver? These can be product/service features, business terms, implementation schedules, service levels, all apparently promised by a sales person, and yet not consistent with the current capability of the business to deliver. In business to business customer relationships, the goal is to develop a long term sustained relationship with the customer. The longer the customer is retained, generally the more profitable the relationship, and the greater the ability to continue to produce revenue from that customer. What if, at the start of the relationship, the product or service does not do what the customer expected, or the business terms or billing processes are cumbersome and prove difficult to comply with, or the service levels are not consistent with expectations, or the product was not implemented according to the schedule that was originally promised? Each one of these issues requires energy and investment by the business to overcome in order to get the customer on an acceptable long term path, albeit with slightly reset expectations. The customer has already experienced significant inconsistencies between the brand promise and the experience of that promise, before the relationship really gets under way. The cost of building brand loyalty with that customer is very high and efforts will continue to be expended over a long period of time as the company goes through extraordinary measures to restore its reputation with that customer and attempt to get the customer’s experience closer to the brand promise. Even simple failures can directly impact the reputation of the business, and the cost of overcoming them. There are many other reasons for the brand promise to be broken without any specific system, product or service experiencing any failure. The result is damaging and costly on brand loyalty, brand efficiency, and the long term cost of repairing and rebuilding the relationship, thus draining resources away from productive work and the bottom line.

by Patrick Smyth

To learn more about Interim Marketing Executives visit OneAccord , email us at info(at)oneaccordpartners.com, or call us at 425.646.2800.

Photo credit

Interim Executive Question: Is Branding Important for B2B?

What makes branding unique for business-to-business companies and is it as important for them as branding is for consumer product companies?

If your business provides products and services to other businesses, you can achieve the benefits of a strong brand identity in customer loyalty, buying preferences, and referrals to other customers. However, the relationship with your customer is far more complex than when compared with consumer product relationships. Business to business service companies must go above and beyond just satisfying the client’s transactional needs to create positive brand loyalty over time. Business to business brand loyalty has less to do with spending money to build awareness than being committed to a complete and systematic and relentless dedication to an idea that is expressed in every way that touches a customer by every employee, consistently across all communication channels, and sustained over a long period of time. Business to business companies often stumble when they fail to align all of their customer facing operational processes and people with the brand promise of the company.

Customers of business to business firms believe that every form of communication they receive from your business, and every interaction that they have with your company, of every type, all combine to form the sum of their customer service experience. Moreover, this experience endures over time, such that errors committed in the past will always remain part of the customer’s perception of their experience with the business, regardless of how well the business may be performing at present. Many companies mistakenly assume that as long as they have highly responsive customer service centers responding to customer calls and resolving issues quickly, then customers will be happy with their business overall. Recognizing the importance of delivering an experience that is consistent with your brand promise across every touch point with customers is the first step to truly differentiating your business. When all those communications channels are aligned and delivering a consistent experience and message to your customers, then you will have achieved a high level of brand efficiency. When any of these channels fails to deliver on the brand promise, then your brand efficiency decreases. When efficiency decreases, there are direct consequences in customer satisfaction and retention, willingness to buy, direct costs required to repair or rework, and in overall financial performance as vital energy in the form of human and financial capital are redirected to address the deficiencies. When brand efficiency is high, then all systems and people in the company can focus most of their energy to serving the customer better, innovating new solutions, beating the competition, and moving the bottom line up.

Photo by Nick Gray

To learn more about Interim Marketing Executives visit OneAccord , email us at info(at)oneaccordpartners.com, or call us at 425.646.2800.

Obsessive Branding Disorder

by John Moore

Lucas Conley’s Obsessive Branding Disorder book is receiving some nice media attention. And for good reason … it’s well-written and provocative.

Conley’s book began as a Fast Company essay from Oct. 2005. He’s since beefed up the premise and added in lots of relevant and unique case study examples.

For the cynical marketing crowd, which includes me, this book will be right in your wheelhouse as it delves deep into the superficial side of the arts and sciences of modern branding.

To give you a taste of Conley’s take, below is my trademark pending WHAT ? — SO WHAT? — WHAT NOW? summary of Obsessive Branding Disorder. (Just kiddin’ on the trademark-pending quip. Tom Ehrenfeld is the rightful owner of this idea.)
WHAT?
“Branding is corrupting our culture by heralding emotion over reason, surface over core substance, and packaging over experience.” (p. 197)

“More than marketing, advertising, or positioning, branding is an all-in-one ideology—a facile reduction malleable enough to govern all facets of modern business.” (p. 5)

“By abandoning the trusty, dusty principles of business—innovative products, good service, solid management—for the idealism of branding, companies reveal the true escapist appeal of their new religion.” (p. 10)

SO WHAT?
“Successful, enduring brands are either truly innovative and outstanding or a great value. They have never needed much advertising. They don’t have to reinvigorate their employees with brand-morale building or rely shamelessly on empty company taglines. Their products fulfill the legitimate purpose of the brand.” (p. 64)

“But the effect of … [obsessive] branding has been a steady erosion in the public’s trust.” (p. 110)

“The world is cheapened when everyone sees it with a marketer’s eye. We lose trust for each other and grow skeptical of one another as we try to determine what we’re being sold. We become more isolated and more self-conscious, more prone to rely on brands for status and to ally ourselves with other brand loyalists for company.” (p. 199)

WHAT NOW?
“To combat this obsessive branding disorder, we must acknowledge that we will always have brands—they are an inevitable medium for communication and commerce.” (p. 201)

“But if we acknowledge that we must rely on brands to some degree, and if we keep our focus on the products rather than the promotions, we can begin to extricate ourselves from a world of brand churches, tribes, and religion.” (p. 202)

“Run a good business and your brand will follow.” (from Lucas’ Oct. 2005 Fast Company essay)

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

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