ego

Just Ask …. you never know – Part 3

differentiation, education, ego, Fear, Marketing, Product Management, single target market

Today we will come down to the exact reason, why this idea is critical for anyone in marketing, product management or sales. This quality is absolutely critical to know and understand why someone is not buying from you, or why someone is not referring customers to you etc.

Marketing and product management teams have to ensure that their product / service sells in the market. That there’s a demand for their product or service on a continuous basis.

If the product is not moving then it becomes imperative to check out the prospects on why they aren’t buying from you. Is the category itself not moving or only your product within the category.

A lot of time guys in the field assume it’s price. That’s the first statement you will always hear if your product is not moving with respect to the competition in the same category. It’s very rare that people get out, in the field to ask questions to the prospects.

Like I mentioned in the first two posts , most of the times, it is our ego and our fear , which stops us from asking the questions. Asking the right questions in the market is key to getting your marketing right. If inspite of all the systematic planning you do, with identifying the single target market and identifying the differentiators and also educating your prospects, then its critical that you get down into the market and systematically ask a large cross section of the market, on what is the hinderance in wanting to buy your product.

A lot of times its just the perception, that is causing people to resist what you have to sell. Sometimes its lack of knowledge. But you will not be able to address these things if you don’t ask. Curiosity is not always a bad thing. And curiosity to know why the product that you are selling is not moving is absolutely essential for your business.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Just Ask – you never know…..Part 2

ego, Fear, Human Brain, Risks

In my last post on this topic I shared two real life incidents of how by just asking – they were able to get things. Both the people kept their egos and fear aside and checked and they were able to get things that they wanted.

Today we will look at why most people – including me , many times – end up with the mice rather than the antelopes.

The story goes that a lion is very much capable of capturing mice and eating them. But it does not hunt mice. It hunts antelopes. Mice are to be found all over the place, but antelopes are few and have to be searched. The lions also have to chase the antelopes to capture one of them, because antelopes can run very fast. But the lion still prefers to hunt the antelopes because the calorific value the lion gets by eating a mouse is not worth the effort. But when it hunts an antelope, it can keep the lion satiated for multiple days, so it’s worth the effort. A lot of times because we see the low hanging fruit we chase that, rather than chasing the worthwhile fruit.

Most of us have extremely big egos and / or a lot of fear. That stops us from asking questions. Given a chance most of us would be scared of even opening our mouth in front of a stranger. We would rather accept what is available without asking the question.

So a lot of times what “antelope” could have been yours, just disappears, because you didn’t ask the route to get the antelopes and stuck yourself in finding the “mice” because they were easier to find. Its all in our brain.

Our brain takes its primary role as survival and fears , asking a question may endanger you or your ego (people may laugh at you because you asked a stupid question or people may shout at you). In school I remember I was taught “curiosity killed a cat”. For a long time and quite a few times even now, this comes up at the back of my mind and stops me from asking questions.

But quite often its worth the try.

Till next time then……just ask…..curiosity doesn’t kill cats.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing – how individual biases play havoc

ego, Marketing, mindset

Individual biases influence on both sides of a transaction – the buying side and the selling side.

Today I will look primarily at the selling side of a transaction and how our individual biases tend to make a mess in a marketing activity.

A simple example could be the way our website should be organised. Depending on the kind of dispensation in the marketing team you could have a staid looking website or a very aggressive looking website. There is nothing wrong in either of these extremes or even in something in-between. The point that needs to be kept in mind is about – who is the customer you are targeting.

If you are targeting a mature audience and you present a staid looking website which is very functional , it might work very well. On the other hand a startup might create a very good user interface for the younger generation but the older generation is not able to get their arms around it.

Since we think the world sees everything the way we see something, these challenges arise. The way we see things is a function of our exposure, our biases, our mindset and our capabilities.

I have a personal bias against doing news paper advertisements. Its just my belief that our kind of business does not have a mass appeal and therefore a newspaper is not the best place to spend money. As a matter of fact you would have noticed this bias in some of the posts that I have put out earlier. Having said that this bias could also be limiting our growth because we have never tried to see its proof.

Another place I see this happening very frequently is summarily dismissing a segment of the market that may not buy. Again I will give my examples so that you know none of this is theoretical. Today itself I had one interaction where I was told that the hospitals are investing a lot of money in IT especially after Covid. I have had this personal bias that hospitals invest in medical equipment, in faciliies but only invest the basic minimum in IT and therefore we have not invested in that area.

Biases happen because of our experiences, so there’s nothing wrong, as long as we are willing to question them from time to time, it should not become an ego issue, otherwise we can lose on lots of opportunities.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Calling out the elephant in the room – Assumptions -3

arrogance, Assumptions, ego, Leadership, Marketing, Product Management

Last 2 posts I had written on listing out the assumptions about your marketing plan or product management plan. I have gone into quite a bit of detail there.

I had no plans for writing a third post for this topic. I subscribe to the newsletter Knowledge@Wharton. I was surprised when I got the newsletter in the email today. The headline of the first item was…..Want to Become a better leader? Question your assumptions

It’s an article where the Dean at Wharton Erika James spoke with author and professor at Wharton Adam Grant on his new book Think Again; The Power of Knowing What you Don’t Know . As per the article , this book is about why executives should reconsider their approaches to manage people….

You can read the full article here.

Not listing out the assumptions for marketing I mentioned was a sign of either arrogance or ego or you just being too naive. Depending on the stage in my career I have been all the 3.

But after reading this I realized that what I thought was a good practice for marketing is also a good practice for leadership. Like in marketing if you let your arrogance or ego come in the way, so in leadership if you can’t see and accept that some assumptions that you are making can defeat your purpose then you are in a bad spot.

I haven’t read this book yet, but just the fact that this came up was very serendipitous. I am definitely going to be buying the book to look at how he thinks on the assumptions for leadership.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!