Working backward from the customer result – B2B scenario -2

B2B, Customer Delight, Customers, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, service quality, single target market, Triggers

In my post yesterday I had shared all the challenges that a B2B target audience faces in her day. Having recognised the result you can offer to your customer to delight them and also identified clearly whom you won’t want to attract. How do you get their attention? If they don’t get their attention, they won’t know if you exist and you won’t be able to do business with them. However given the challenges on their time and attention, you window of opportunity is just a few seconds, before you are dumped.

The other bigger issue is that the B2B buyer is not an impulse buyer. She cannot just buy something, until and unless it’s something of extremely low value. Chances are that the need that your product or service is fulfilling is already being done by some other vendor or some other means (the Porter’s model of competitive forces) . If that be the case, its absolutely impossible to displace the existing set-up until and unless the dissatisfaction has reached a threshold value.

So one of the things that works with B2B buyers is identifying the points of dissonance and then communicating with the buyer over the long term. Over a 3 year period, at least 50% of the buyers will face challenges and if you are there in front of them at that time when the threshold is reached, they will consider you. However for this you need to plan your marketing expenses in such a way so that you don’t run out of money before the business starts coming. Marketing stamina in case of B2B is critical.

The other things which could get the attention are typically triggers – I have done detailed posts on this topic earlier also, so I won’t go into the details here. But a new customer getting onboarded or a their existing vendor going bankrupt or a new boss. All those triggers can suddenly change the dynamics, if you can exploit them.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Working backward from the customer result – B2B scenarios

B2B, Marketing, messaging, Product Management, single target market

I wrote a few posts on how you start with the customer result – what will delight the customer so much that they will become “raving fans”.

Lets now look at how this could possibly work in a B2B scenario where you have a multiple people involved in making the decision.

So if you start with a result that will delight the customer – define that customer in as much detail , with who that customer WILL be and who WILL NOT BE. I keep emphasising on this point in all my product management and marketing posts. It is always more important to define whom you will not like to serve. That portion of the market is always larger than the market which you can serve.

Once you have defined the boundaries of your service or product to delight, then look at how you will reach her and get her attention. In a B2B scenario this is a very big challenge.

Many people are wanting to get attention of our person. These are primarily 3 sets of stakeholders who are vying for her attention. First is her seniors, then her peers and more than anyone her reportees.

Now within all this chaos there are hundreds of messages which are also vying for her attention from all these stakeholders as well as vendors like us. In addition there are the pressures of her personal life which could also be occupying the same attention span.

So who gets priority
Not your message for sure….until and unless it is something that catches her attention.

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!

The Network effect – for your personal growth

B2B, compounding, Networking, relationships

If you search Wikipedia the network effect is how the value of the good or services increases with the number of participants. Companies which operate on this kind of a phenomenon grow in value exponentially. Think Amazon. The more the participants on the market place that they have created, the more the customers whose needs will get fulfilled and they will buy more, more often. This is positive feedback loop with more consumers on the marketplace, more the people who will want to sell on the Amazon Marketplace. The growth of these kind of companies is exponential.

In case of B2B having connections with people and keeping relationships alive is a big positive. While social media helps getting connected to people, it does not help build relationships. So while I may have a 1000+ connections on Linkedin, my relationships would be very limited.

You build relationships by giving first. By doing that you invoke the reciprocity principle espoused by Robert Cialdini in his book Influence. What is however even more important, is to keep the relationships alive. People keep moving. They changes places, they change jobs. When they do that, they get connected to more people. To emphasise the value of your individual network, Joe Polish runs Genius Network which is a network where super successful entrepreneurs network and master mind.

The more people you know, the more people who fall into your network. I have had introductions to people because of my relationships that I cultivated over years. Those connects in turn helped us get even bigger, because now there were more people who got connected to us and invited us to work with them. Such people who can connect you to such major influencers can change the trajectory of your business completely. The more pf these kind of people you form relationships, the more influencers you get connected to indirectly.It was typical to the definition of the Network Effect I spoke about earlier. This kind of exponential growth is compounding over a period of time.

You have to however be patient. “Rome was not built in a Day” applies to building relationships as well. Also not everyone you “give first” will reciprocate and you don’t know the timeline when they will reciprocate, if they ever will. But you keep doing this work on a consistent basis because when the critical mass is reached, there’s a sudden explosion in the kind of business you can grow.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Branding – why it’s so important

B2B, Consistency, Trust

Today’s is going to be a short one. Most of my posts are generally less than a three minute read, but this one would be even shorter.

Today I had the opportunity to visit two luxury hotels in Delhi.

It is heartening to see that the travel and hospitality industry is coming back so strongly . This is one industry which employs so many people directly and indirectly.

What’s important to note is that both these hotels are 5 star properties. So they are not cheap by any standard, but still they are going full. One is an international brand, while the other is an Indian brand with an international presence.

My thinking is that people trust that these brands would be taking necessary precautions which unknown brands would not.

During tough times, the brands , that have built a strong relationship based on trust, get to grow their business. Brands are built by consistently delivering on what they promise.

Whether you are in B2B or B2C , consistently delivering on your promise gives long term dividends.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!