B2B

Marketing Stamina & the Single Target Market – 3

B2B, budget, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, single target market

While consumer marketing is very tough, once you reach the right person, the decision making is generally quicker / simpler because there are fewer people involved. The other point is that within the consumer segment, there are few internal personal dynamics / hidden agendas in play.

In case of the B2B segment, even after you have reached the right people , you are unsure when the priorities change or a new person comes into a role and she scuttles the whole deal. A typical situation which has happened to me multiple times is that we are working with the department which will use our services. Multiple people from that department are involved – from gatekeepers to decision makers. Over the years, we have realised the fact that procurement and finance, do need to get involved, so we check with the users when those departments will take part in the discussion.

A lot of times even the legal gets involved, so we push our prospect to even get these folks checked out. So we have put a check mark on most of these points. By being focussed on the Single Target Market we understand most of the issues and processes and have fine-tuned our approach accordingly.

Now comes the surprise – while we have checked out all the departments and we have crossed all the “t’s” and dotted all the “I’s” with everyone, we suddenly find a new face who has recently joined the company in a new role and he is asked to attend the meeting in which we are discussing the final aspects.

Suddenly this person opens her mouth on some aspect and now, everyone is in doubt.

Now you have to ensure that all the doubts that have been raised get sorted. Until then the deal does not come your way.

If you don’t account for these kind of delays, which happen all the time, your budgets can go haywire. This is where having enough marketing stamina, helps keep you afloat and hunt for new customers while deals close.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing Stamina & the Single Target Market – 2

B2B, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, single target market

To continue where we left out in yesterday’s post – you look for the highest yield within a niche and then focus on that for the long term till you get to dominate that market.

We looked at the examples of how even till today P&G’s Tide detergent powder is about keeping the Clothes whiter than white – even though they have been doing this for my guess is at least 40 years. And they have huge departments whose only focus in life, is to ensure people’s clothes stay white.

So they have segmented the market for washing clothes (usage) – between the ones preferring detergent powders to another who prefer liquid detergents. Then within detergent powders they go to the single target market of washing just white clothes

In case of B2B we look at the different possibilities of usage – so lets take an example of productivity applications. So you have applications via the web in a SAAS model on a monthly small license fee or with on-prem one time perpetual license. You could have within the productivity applications market, sales person productivity also…..so you have CRM companies bundling word processors and spreadsheets into their CRM so that the sales person doesn’t need to move out of the CRM at all.

So these companies are only targeting the sales person – anyone who’s not a sales person and not utilising “their” CRM is not a focus. This way they are ensuring that they are focussing on a very small segment of the market and working to utilise all their energies and funds in trying to dominate that market.

By focussing this way you will be able to play a longer game.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing Stamina – Revisited

B2B, life time value, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, persistence

On the 28th of October last year I had put up a post on this topic. If you are interested, you can have a look at it here .

The reason I felt a need to revisit this topic, came up because, I was analysing the average time it takes to get traction for a new product or service in the B2B market. If you are in the technology market space I would highly recommend you read the book Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. It will give you a more detailed context to what I am talking.

However coming back to the B2B market – the key issue that needs to handled is corporate inertia. In most cases the people in these companies are fighting so many battles, that they don’t want to touch anything that’s not broken. Also because there’s so many approvals involved, they don’t want to risk the product / solution Not Working in their environment. Especially in case of technology solutions, most companies prefer to work with “n-1” technology because it’s stable and working. They don’t want one more fire in their hand.

The other thing which plays a role in my opinion, is that the customer wants to see your resilience. They don’t trust anyone approaching them new, for the same points as I listed above and in most cases they are already covered with an existing vendor who is providing decently good service. So until and unless the incumbent screws up some time soon, they won’t look at you.

So does it mean that you can’t get into business for the B2B segment.

You absolutely can, if you can plan for the long term. You ensure that you have enough persistence and finances to last you for a long duration. While I learnt the term marketing stamina from Dean Graziosi, I learnt the application of this idea through Dean Jackson. His thought process is like this – if you know the turnover rate of any market – say 5% – 10% of the people will change to a new vendor every year – and you have a focussed list of 1000 prospects then over the next 5 years at least 250 – 500 prospects.

Now depending on what you sell and what is the Life Time Value of a client, you will need to have the staying power to last through the 5 years with consistently reaching out to these customers. If you don’t plan for this, you will be in for a rude shock and you will do things out of desperation, which is never a good thing.

Till next time then ….build your marketing stamina before getting into a new market.

Carpe Diem!!!

Playing the Devil’s Advocate in B2B sales to realise higher prices

B2B, compelling, Customers, Sales

I have a major challenge pushing my sales people to sell at a higher price. They always have a pushback on the price saying the customer won’t buy. And we have big arguments.

Is this something you face. Is it difficult for you to charge a higher price for your services. Do you always end up losing orders, because your price is “high”

One technique, which I have shared to a small extent earlier also, is to play the devil’s advocate with the customer. There’s a caveat when you want to use this technique – you have to be sure that you provide the best services. If not, then first go and put your house in order. Learn to provide the best possible services at whatever price that you think is good.

With the devil’s advocate you make the customer convince you that she wants to do business with you. If the customer is able to convince you, then she can, internally, within her organisation, also convince people. Most of the times in B2B scenarios, the customer is surrounded by so many vendors who are all trying to say one of two things – I am the cheapest and / or I am the best. And the customer doesn’t believe any of them. In addition a lot of times, the person who is representing the customer, is also not clear why she wants to go after the solution. Most often its because someone higher up in the “pay grade” has asked them to find out.

So some of you would already be squirming that it’s not possible to raise the value of your offering. Just be with me for a minute and try this in your next meeting.

So first of all start with the first WHY – why are you wanting to do ‘this’ – whatever it is that they have asked you to come for, to discuss. Then you get to the second WHY – why is ‘this’ important in the bigger scheme of things in your business.

The third WHY starts to get you to figure out the value from a business perspective – WHY are you considering ‘this’ kind of a solution, couldn’t you have done it way cheaper by doing ‘that’ where the ‘that’ is an alternate and much lower price way to solve a problem. A very simplistic example of this would be – what are you wanting to buy a truck for, when you can use a bullock cart to transport the goods at a much lower cost. This will get the customer to come out, with what it is , that is key to them – a truck can carry longer distances faster and we want to get our products to de delivered to the farthest parts of the country. A bullock cart would take months and our competition will capture the market during that time.

Now you are getting a feel of what is important to them – long distance travel, fast.

Now comes the fourth WHY – I get your reason for not considering a bullock cart, but why are you wanting to consider our 10000CC trucks (just a a random figure) when you can have cheaper 5000CC trucks (another random figure) . At this stage if she says Yes we are considering 5000CC trucks and they are happy with that option, then they will expect your price to come closer to the 5000CC option and you will only play a losing game.

On the other hand if she says, I understand that the 5000CC trucks are cheaper, but their ability to drive continuously is limited to 3 hours while we would prefer if the truck can be driven continuously for 7-8 hours, then you now have different playing field. And you have not had to convince her.

You need to remember that in B2B scenarios, you are looking at professional buyers, who do buying all the time and want to compare you always with the lowest priced option. And you can keep trying to convince them of the value you bring but they won’t get convinced. However once you make them come out with the issues themselves, it becomes a lot easier since they are now providing all the compelling reasons.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!