Entering new into a technology based B2B business

B2B, Marketing, new launch, single target market

Even if you have an old business but you are entering into a new market or entering with a completely new product/service it makes sense to identify the Single Target Market that you would like to focus. Most of us in business don’t have the luxury of creating a product from ground up based on market research about a need in the market. More often than not, we are given a product or service and as marketing heads, we are supposed to identify the right market, right audience etc.

I typically follow a checklist of about 12 items which primarily focus on the customer side of the issues that we should be looking for when we decide to take a product or service to the market.

Before anything else that we do, I would like to understand, what is the problem that the customer thinks that we are solving……not what we think, we are solving for the customer. So as an example – using automation, I might help the customer reduce his time for making a data entry of items that are coming into his factory by reading the incoming invoices quickly.

However for the customer, it might mean, that there are less trucks waiting in line on the road, because the entry is happening faster due to the use of automatic invoice readers. In the present situation, without the automatic readers, the line of trucks could be blocking the road and because of which the cops might be paying a visit to them often to get the road cleared. Maybe even levying a fine.

So while you may think you are solving the problem of inputing invoices and saving time, the actual problem you are solving is eliminating the hassle for the factory manager to ensure the roads don’t get blocked by the trucks coming into their factory.

Why is knowing “what is the problem” important – for two reasons – first is the perception issue – the customer may actually not think of a putting up automatic readers because they already have experienced people doing the job today and putting up an investment in a new technology may not be a priority, so your proposal gets pushed back.

However talking about the line of trucks, which are causing a traffic jam, could be a different ball game.

Its the same solution from your perspective – automating the incoming invoices with the trucks – but to the customer it may be a different aspect.

So it’s important to quickly test your ideas with customers with actual interactions to identify the right message that may resonate with customers. If you follow my blogs, you will notice, I lay a lot of emphasis on testing of different messages, strategies etc. Its absolutely critical , if you want to succeed, to quickly test what is working and what is not.

Generally if a message resonates with an audience, the response can be very quick. However if a message is not resonating, then you have to keep tweaking before giving up. A lot of times dropping the product is a much better idea then to be stuck with the “sunk cost bias”

This post focussed on one of the key starting points to help you identify the market you need to focus on and identify the issues from the customer’s perspectives.

In future posts, I will cover other points in my check list.

Till next time then.

Capre Diem!!!

P.S: If any of you , is however interested in receiving my 12 point checklist to help you plan your marketing strategy for a new launch, just message me with your email id and I will send it out to you.

How do you do pricing?

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

Pricing is one of those concepts, that whenever a sales guy will lose a deal, they will blame it on price – our price was too high. For customers, the easiest way to push you away, is to say that your price is too high. In both the situations, the easiest people to blame is the product/marketing folks – “they don’t understand the reality of the market place, they just sit in the office and tell us what to do without understanding what the customer wants”. Pricing is one of the key reasons – marketing and sales don’t see eye to eye.

Just to clarify – its not that I don’t lose cases on price.

My agenda from this post is to help you not waste time with a customer who does not have the ability to value what you offer in return for the price that you charge. Its both marketing and sales’ responsibility to showcase the value to the customer.

That was a loaded statement – so let me break it down – what is the customer’s perception of what you provide and what she should pay for it. The other is, how do you do your pricing.

As a product manager or marketing manager, when you build a pricing for something, you generally take into account the costs involved at your end. Then you add a margin and give that as the price to be charged. This is the easiest way – Cost+Markup

On the other hand, if you were to look at the value / result / outcome, that the customer will get , by using your product or service and then work backwards, you will be able to come to a better argument. If you don’t know the result that you can get for your customer and there are others who can provide almost similar value at a lower price, then the customer will go with your competition.

I have lost a lot of deals where initially the customer didn’t appreciate the value of the kind of trainings we give our people and how they impact the execution of the project and the reason for us being almost double of someone else. But then we had them come back to us, at a much bigger value when they failed to get the project executed and the cost of penalties and reputation, was even bigger for them. Obviously there were also a lot of them where they got the project executed with someone else at a lower price.

The agenda for showing value has to be ours – not the customer’s. You can verify with the customer, during your meetings, if they value what you sell. Don’t ask this question to operational people. I have made that mistake many times. They have no view of what is going on in the mind of the leadership team. Ask it to people in finance or leadership. Those people look at it from the return of investment perspective. If what they value is what you give, then you have an easy task.

On the other hand, if what you have can enhance the value of what they think, they want, then you have to show them, what else is possible and they agree then you can move forward. Generally if you have chosen your Single Target Market well, then this task becomes comparatively easy because most people in that niche will value similar things.

If what you are selling can get them 10 times of the price you are charging, then you have an argument. If you are charging a price of $1500/- and you can show them how the value (reduction in cost or increase in revenue) will be 10 time or worth $15000/- then you can have a good discussion. But if the return on the investment Is only equal or couple of times more than the investment, it is not worth.

Remember the inertia is so high in B2B setups, that they don’t want to go through the whole process of identifying something where the return is minimal.

But you can use this same inertia to your advantage. If the customer has experienced you before and you have delivered on your promise or commitments, then if you are slightly more expensive then the competitors, they will prefer to deal with you because they know you can deliver.

So coming back to the main topic – how can you then do pricing. You can do it better when your argument of value is clearly identified – whether with your case studies or testimonials etc., in case they have not worked with you before. When the customer knows that you CAN deliver , what you promise and she Values what you deliver, then the pricing argument reduces. Doing pricing on a cost plus basis is generally a losing proposition in a highly competitive environment.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Practicing what I preach

coaching, Marketing, medium

Last few days I haven’t had the time to write my blog posts. I keep talking to you about getting coaching to sharpen your saw. So I recently decided to take one more coaching which will last a few weeks where there will be some teaching and then we are supposed to practice. So its not that I just tell you to get coaching in the areas where you can improve, I also find ways to constantly improve myself.

If you choose the right coach, you can shorten your learning curve dramatically.

So I was busy testing out how I could utilise what I had learnt for Linkedin. As I have mentioned earlier also, each medium has its nuances. If you want to become proficient with any medium, you need to become aware of the nuances, the psychology of the customer using the medium.

As an example if you are doing an on-prem seminar. This seminar is where everyone is together and you are talking or addressing a lot of people together from a stage. On the other hand if you are using email as your medium, then it is a one-on-one medium. No one reads their email aloud to everyone. They read it privately.

LinkedIn also as a medium has its nuances. Its a place where things are less formal since people are in your direct connect or in your network of connects.

So my agenda is to improve my prospecting skills on LinkedIn given that we work in the B2B environment. Similarly I am looking at how I can utilise LinkedIn to get better candidates for our jobs as well as advertise for our offerings.

Will keep you posted on what I learn and how it helped me improve my capabilities further.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Practice makes a man (& woman) perfect

Affirmative action, Marketing, Testing

I like to read a lot of books, listen to a lot of audio recordings while I am travelling and also watch sessions on YouTube. I am gatherer of information. So intellectually that’s a great thing. However not all that I read/hear/see stays with me until I apply it.

When we were young and new to the selling profession, our bosses did trainings of all the kinds, to tell us things that are good about our product and then about how bad the competition is, and what all questions the customer can ask. But when we went out to do our first call, everything went flat. The customer asked all the questions for which no training had been given, the customer found all the features that competition gave, as useful, while ours were useless to them. How many of you have had this situation with your first assignments.

Its only after you go through the customer meetings, that you realise, what is of value to which kind of customer. There will be some customers who will value what you have to offer and most won’t. But until you get down into the market to actually start selling you won’t be able figure that out. Practice is what makes you perfect.

The same can be said of ANY kind of knowledge. Until you practice it, you won’t know what may work and what may not.

In marketing, because there’s a lot of psychology involved, its very difficult to do arm chair thinking and decide what will work. Until you go out into the market/ Google/ other media and actually check out what the customers need, what the competition is doing, all your thought process has no significance. This does not mean you don’t do planning. But planning without action is worthless. Money comes into the bank only when someone sells something. And that can’t happen if you don’t get out in the market and sell.

And who would know this more than me. I am one of the biggest procrastinators and gatherers of knowledge. But I LEARN only when I actually try it out in whatever field. So most of the things I write on this blog, are there because I have tried and tested (failed for general folks) and become better.

So whenever you get some information, try to use it before looking out to acquire more information. That way the information will become knowledge that will stay with you for a long time.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!