Marketing

Possibility thinking

Affirmative action, Human Brain, Labelling, Marketing, possibility thinking, Sales, Thinking

A lot of times I get stuck in my thinking. This especially happens in stressful situations where I ascribe an intention without the facts. To all of us, a person not picking up the phone – seems like the person is trying to avoid us, then our mind goes in frenzy identifying all the reasons that the person could be avoiding us and our mind takes us back into some random situation and we feel all bad and low.

We end up putting labels on the person, that he/she is bad, deliberately doing this to us etc. etc.

Its quite possible that the person’s phone was on silent and she didn’t notice. She may end up calling you when she sees your call and then you realise you have ended up wasting so much time.

So generally what I have started doing when I feel that something is not okay, I take the initiative in trying to check out first if everything’s okay. A lot of times I have come to realise that the person was going through some personal challenges of his own and could not have been in a position to talk with me.

But more than that I realize that there was nothing personal that this person had against me.

Now why did I give you all this story. Because a lot of times when a prospect stops responding to you, we end up ascribing all kinds of motives. When a product that you were so passionate about is not picked up in the market, then also we start ascribing all kinds of ideas.

With possibility thinking you try to look at – is there something else, is there something which I am not noticing, is there something which is absolutely unrelated to us because of which the prospect has stopped talking to us.

In sales this happens most when suddenly the prospects stop responding to your mails. More often than not I have observed that the manager gives another responsibility to the person you were interacting with and he puts your proposal on the back burner. Nothing personal with you.

One of best ways to get someone to open up in such situations is to write an “apology mail for bothering her and asking if there’s something we could have done better to not have put her off” In most situations an apology mail like this gets the person to respond with the exact situation because most people want to be fair and they don’t want you apologising for something you didn’t do.

On the other hand you could also have competition which you never thought of , suddenly appear and suddenly sabotage your sale by targeting the boss of the person you were interacting with.

With possibility thinking you like to keep asking questions without getting negative about the situation, and then getting it clarified. Time is the most important thing for a sales or marketing person. Spending that time , rueing about and ascribing all kinds of ideas to the person is a waste of time. its better to keep eliminating negative possibilities and identifying more positive possibilities.

This is not about positive thinking, about a glass being half empty or full. This is about being constructive in your usage of the limited resource that you have – called time.

Till next time then. Keep thinking in terms of possibilities.

Carpe Diem!!!

TRUST

Character, Competence, Marketing, messaging, Trust

I have always believed that you need to create trust with the buyer. If the buyers, in the case of B2B, do not trust you (first) and the technology (second) they will not buy from you.

I had a moment of  reckoning when I  was reading the book The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey.

For me trust was always a factor of honesty and integrity or what can also be called character. If I  was honest about how I  dealt with others in my transactions and if I did what I said I would do, then I  could be trusted. Over a period of time people notice this and start trusting you.

Being from marketing,  I  always equated Branding with a promise that people could trust.

The reckoning was that Trust has another component- Competence – the ability to get the job done.  If you don’t have the ability to get a job done when you said you will get it done, then people won’t trust you.

A very good example the author gives is about a surgeon. You may believe someone has character but would you let her operate on you if she doesn’t have Competence.  You will trust a surgeon if you see she has Competence (her degree, license etc.) and if after checking her earlier patients you identify Character.

The implications for marketing are tremendous of this statement.  You not only need to show character, but you also need to show competence in what you do. In all your messaging you need to bring out both the aspects before expecting the prospect to interact with you.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing is Education – Part 3

education, Marketing, Methodologies, Technology

In this part today we will look at another set of great marketing successes who have used education as a method to differentiate themselves and made me their customer.

Example 1: Jay Abraham. I referred to him in the first part of this series. He is big time into giving away knowledge free of cost. There’s so much knowledge which I have gained from him, that when I could afford I started investing in his programs. Due to him I learned that there are only 3 ways to grow a business. The strategy of pre-eminence. The marketing Parthenon etc.

Example 2: Motilal Oswal.This is one of the biggest brokerages in India. When I was starting to learn about the stock markets, I read a lot of the Berkshire letters to the shareholders by Warren Buffet. I read a massive amount of books on the subject. The only challenge was that all the content was international. I was looking for content specifically for India.

That’s when I found the Wealth Creation studies that have been authored by Raamdeo Aggarwal each year for the last 20 odd years. These studies don’t talk about their company at all except maybe for the methodologies they use. Due to that, you gain trust.

When I read those twenty odd reports, I was able to understand the Indian stock markets. So when I had to choose my brokerage, I chose motilaloswal. There were others who were offering cheaper options but because I had trust in motilaloswal, I took them.

Its however difficult to create pure education based content and put it out. Even though I am so much in favor of creating educational content around your offerings, its especially tough when you are in the technology space where there’s so much happening. So I also struggle to get this to happen.

Having said that, I would still think its the best way to build trust with customers.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing is Education- Part 2

Breathing, education, Health, Marketing, Yoga

Today I will give you examples of how different people / companies have used education to create a massive amount of marketing pull for their companies.

Example 1 : Joe Polish , Dean Jackson , Dan Sullivan. Between the three of them they run 4-5 podcasts. Ilovemarketing.com, morecheeselesswhiskers.com, 10Xtalk.com, Cloudlandia etc.

The amount of knowledge they give in these podcasts and related YouTube videos is so amazing. I have utilized so much of that knowledge and because I saw their knowledge working for me, I also started buying some of their products .

Example 2: Baba Ramdev is a Yoga and Ayurveda guru in India . Ayurveda is the more than 7000 year science of using plants and herbs to heal the body. Using Yoga and Ayurveda Ramdev baba teaches how you can live a healthy life.

Whenever possible I watch his videos on YouTube and television channels like IndiaTV. Through these I have learnt so many breathing exercises to keep me alert and healthy as well as about plants and herbs that can keep me healthy.

Patanjali is the company which sells Ayurveda products which is associated with Baba Ramdev and he does show some of those products in passing.

But what do you think comes to my mind first when I have to buy AloeVera juice. You got it Patanjali. Simply because the other companies didn’t teach me the advantages of using AloeVera first, I always prefer Patanjali . Like me there are millions of people who have today made Patanjali a company with revenues of more than USD 2 Billion.

Tomorrow I will pick up some more examples from different fields where education has helped increase the business.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!