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Solution Selling with a Positive Spin.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A lot of my hours at What’s The Idea? involve networking and business development. When not being paid for brand and marketing consultation, I’m on the lookout for brand and marketing opportunities to share with prospects. Business development can be a dirty word from the prospect’s viewpoint, however. It has to be meaningful, not salesy. 

Ten plus years ago someone published a sales book about “solution selling,” a technique whereby a salesperson meets a prospect and asks about their “pain points.” This is supposed to fast track the sellers approach. Done well it has worked. Done poorly, it’s like asking a patient “How’s your cancer?”

Consultants in the brand business use a promotion called the “communications audit,” where they go into a company and look at the totality of communications. When arrayed, they then point out all the contradictions, mistakes, inconsistencies and meaningless flah-flah-flah – hoping to embarrass the business into an engagement. I’m thinking of a promotion which is the obverse of the communications audit. Perhaps I’ll call it a “marketing high points audit.” Rather than all negative, I’ll only identify the things done well. Proponents of political advertising may disagree with the approach but then I’m not looking to get elected. I’m looking to create meaningful dialogue.

Tink about it (as my Norwegian aunt might say).

 

 

 

Category Experience Can Be Bull Shite.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I can count on 10,000 fingers the number of times I’ve come across hiring scenarios where people are looking for category experience. Steeped, repetitive, ingrained category experience is drawing the life out of innovation. That’s why the web and app-based tech sector is so vibrant. It’s only a few years old.

I have a really smart friend with lots of marketing muscle who owns a consulting business. She is employing a team of business development “hunters” to grow business by targeting certain categories: healthcare, tech, automotive, etc.

But what if she took a different tack? What if she looked at the business problem from the perspective of prospects? What if the hunters were organized not by business category, but by growth category? For instance, companies growing by 100% a year, companies growing by double digits, companies growing by single digits. Or how about companies holding at zero growth, or losing revenue by double digits?

Then allow the hunters to devise strategies tailored to these segments. The marketing tactics for the high growth companies are immensely different than those of no growth companies. The strategies for single-digit growers differ broadly for single digit losers.

The fact that a company is in a category presents neither a problem or an opportunity, so why do marketing consultants roll that way? Revenue growth and the speed of revenue growth are what companies need to learn about and affect. Freshies.

 

7 Anxieties.

By
Steve Poppe
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1

banquet I did some freelance for Possible Worldwide (nee Bridge Worldwide) a couple of years ago on ConAgra’s Banquet Frozen Foods. As part of the exercise, all team members were asked to go the grocery store and plan a meal at a given weekly budget. My assignment was “retired man with a weekly food budget of $50.” I was to record what I bought and report in. Neat exercise. Great start to the project. Great formula for priming the pump and creating context.

Then we had the team meeting. I’m not exactly sure what came out of the meeting but it wasn’t brilliance. I do not really recall any visceral insights or discussions. And recall in planning is where it’s at.

The exercise could have gotten exciting at this meeting had it been more fluid. The thinking of collectives is best when accompanied by serendipity. Had the in-store exercise been used as a spark and team members set loose to report findings and start discussions in their own ways, we may have had some magic.  I, for instance, may have presented “7 anxieties.”  What goes through a man’s head at shopping time, when budgeted only $50 per week.

In planning, sometimes the tools we use limit us. It’s natural. The rules we use in planning are also natural. But the excitement comes from agility, inspiration, experimentation. So use your tools then break some rules. Peace.

Change the signs or change the strategy?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

sign installation Why is it that many companies understand the value of paying for and adhering to new logo designs yet don’t understand the value of and adherence to a brand strategy?

Logos are expensive and easy. Get a branding company to write a brief (maybe) and turn loose some designers. Approve some black and white options, wait two weeks for the full color spectacular. Then another 2 weeks for the tweaks and 5 more for the big presentation with the graphics standards manual leave-behind. Within a year every building sign is changed, every truck repainted, the website has new clothes and the marketing department is churning out the logo’ed baseball caps and PDFs. Bam!

But present a brand strategy (claim and 3 proof planks) and marketing plan (obs/strats/tactics) that included not just messaging but staffing, product and experience recommendations and you get that far away stare. It’s easy to change the signs, not so easy to alter behavior. Agencies know what to do with a brand strategy brief. They make stuff. Clients, though, have a harder time navigating brand strategy.

Top marketing executives understand branding is about claim and proof. Proof and deeds. Deeds and experiences. Strategically organized and tightly managed. Peace.

Hey, I’m sellin’ here.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There is no strategy without tactics. Guys like me who write about brand strategy may seem like we’re above tactics, not wanting to get our hands dirty. (Twenty years ago, Peter Kim a McCann-Erickson mentor told me “Once I’ve sold the brand idea, I want to be done.” Everything after that gets messy, he explained. Approving ads, media, talent and all other things subjective.

The thing about planners, especially older planners, is we like to understand the big picture first. We like to go big. Once we understand how to solve the category, the deepest pent up consumer need, then we can focus on the specifics. Problem is, marketers aren’t looking to solve the world’s ills, they’re looking to sell shit. Flat out, right away, cha-ching the cash register, sell shit. Today in this fast twitch media world, marketing directors want their chunk of the returns. Big data? Hell no. Little data about my product. Yes. Data that says “more sales.” Period.

So we planners need to get the pipes out of our mouths and start talking tactics with clients. (Maybe keep the big picture stuff to ourselves a little more.) All my rants about claim and proof? Here’s one: Good branding works. Sales are proof.

Peace.

The Exploratory

By
Steve Poppe
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0

As a consultant I am a big fan of the exploratory meeting. Both parties at exploratory meetings are explorers. And I love explorers. Consumers are explorers. But, sadly, we don’t always treat them as such. As much as brand planners focus on repetitive brand behavior, we know that the “buy moment” (as my friends at BrandTuitive call it) is best when exciting and enthusiastic. Dull and droning buy moments create “satisfied” moments. “Satisfied customers will leave you everyday” someone recently said in a seminar.

So we explore. In search of new stories. New ways to share. New people and inspiration. Every day is exciting for the explorer. And if you can make your consumer’s day a little more exciting, a little richer, you are doing your job. Peace!

 

 

 

How change happens. Sometimes.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

We Americans don’t like to be pushed around. Yet we are a odd, lazy people sometime. If a story appears in the local weekly newspaper about a malnourished child, the porch of the child’s home will be filled with food by nightfall. However, when we read one third of Yemeni children under the age of 5 are undernourished we flip the page.

North Korea has bullied Sony and a number of theater chains into pulling the film The Interview, a film that might normally gross $75M. But this bullying has pissed off Americans to the point where we’re actually primed to do something. But what? Were Sony to release the film over the web and ask for a $2.00 donation for special fund to drop DVDs of the movie over Pyongyang, the movie would likely be the highest grossing film of all time. No matter the quality.

This satire was an important movie. It has the ability to disrupt how films are distributed. If Sony chooses to crowd source funding for the movie it may lead us down a new path. One sparked by a bully. And this is how change happens sometime. “For good people to do something.” Peace.

Evidence of change.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Reading an article yesterday on Haider al-Abadi, the new prime minister of Iraq, greatly informed my brand planning thinking. In two ways. What’s the Idea? readers know how I feel about brand “claim and proof.” Well, evidence is another word for proof. When Mr. Abadi wants Iraqis to know there is a new sheriff in town, and that there will be a more pluralistic nation state in Iraq he did a few things differently. While predecessor al-Maliki went before Parliament 2 times in 8 years, Mr. Abadi has been 3 time in his first couple of months. When there were disputes between tribes threatening to hold up military action against ISIS, Mr. Abadi rolled up his sleeves and mediated traditional blood money solutions.

If his claim is “change” the evidence must be tangible.

Learning for brand planners is similar. But before we get to claim and evidence we need to deeply understand the category. A thorough understanding of the bigger category picture, is important before we focus on our specific brand work. For instance, I understand what it takes to improve K12 education before I recommend an interactive white board solution. I understand what it takes to fix the U.S. healthcare system, before I recommend a physician group. I know the impact of obesity on the masses and families before I recommend a weight loss modality. And so on.

When a brand planner gets the big picture, s/he can then safely focus on the smaller picture. And when serving up that smaller picture claim, be sure to provide lots of memorable evidence. All claim and no proof is wasted an all but the production company. Peace.

 

Checking out of marketing.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Friday I posted that face-to-face communication, bolstered by listening, understanding and empathy is a strong way to convince someone of another point of view.

The problem with marketing today is that too much emphasis is placed on pushing product benefits while not enough focus is placed on consumer need. A great salesman, like a great physician, takes the time to listen before prescribing. And to truly hear. But ads don’t have the ability to listen, they are only one way vehicles. The best they can do is recount having listened to consumers in the past and package accordingly. A work around. We tend to flatten out the selling process in marketing by jumping to the benefit which minimizes effectiveness. Consumer are complicated.

The web allows us to unbundle this flattened process and that’s a very good thing. Let’s find ways to listen, be empathic and helpful on the web. Then we’ll move the sales ball ahead. Proceed to check out? Peace.

 

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