Sustained Lead Generation- keeping the funnel full

Business, differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management

Today is the financial year closing for all organisations in India. I had an extremely hectic day where we were trying to close a very large deal – which eventually slipped the deadline.

So again tomorrow morning we get back to figuring out how to get the deal in our favor.

As they say – There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip – so do large blockbuster deals have a way of going through multiple iterations before they fruitify.

That’s where having a sustained method of generating leads of average value orders makes a big difference to your pipeline. There’s better predictability in the system for your cash flows and you build the processes and infrastructure in your company to ensure that these orders can get revenued systematically without any chokes.

For most businesses however generating the sustained leads becomes a nightmare because we try to focus on too many things at the same time. If we were to focus on only a very few markets, by segmenting them and differentiating our offerings for each segment, there would not be too much of anxiety. The occasional blockbuster then can be managed within the existing system.

On the other hand if the growth is based on the back of the block buster while there’s no pipeline for sustained order booking then you are in for major challenges. Segmenting and niching the market is the only viable way for a Product Manager to ensure that they can get success in the market

Lets see what the new financial year has in store for us.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Larger the choices – lesser the chance of success -II

differentiation, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, Product Management, segmentation

I have consistently been ranting about choosing only one market whenever you are starting. This need not only be about when you are starting a new business. For a product manager who has been given a new product to take to the market, the logic remains the same.

See whenever you try to look at multiple choices, you have an opportunity cost involved. With multi[le options you have to spend energy between those options. Everyone has limited amounts of energy.

You could keep focused on one market and understand the conversation going on in the head of the people you are targeting. It takes an enormous amount of iterations to understand the conversations in the minds of the customers in one market. Its never feasible to get the marketing right in the “first go”. You have to keep testing and figuring out the right message which would resonate with the market you have chosen. Only once you understand those conversations, can you tailor your messaging and “Go-TO-Market” strategy to dominate a market.

Sometimes the first market you choose may not have the need you first thought it would have because the underlying “infrastructure” is still weak. The SaaS solution you have designed for a specific market doesn’t take off because the internet speed in that market is poor. So you have to rethink your “Go-To-Market” .

The moment you try to look at multiple markets you end up compromising on the depth of your engagement. This opportunity cost is very high. Since you are trying to take multiple positions simultaneously in different segments of the market you end up weak in all of them and you don’t get the opportunity to dominate any one of them.

There’s nothing stopping you from dominating one market and moving to the other but if you try to dominate all segments simultaneously you will not succeed.

For all Product Managers in the making or already there keep this fundamental at the top of your mind always – Only Market to Start – Always

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!

Larger the choices – less is the chance for for success

differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Product Management, segmentation

When you have multiple choices on how your product/service can be used , the lesser the chance of you being able to dominate the market. Its like when my wife went to a food store in Toronto, she was overwhelmed with the number of choices for just cornflakes from just one brand. She couldn’t make a decision and she came back without buying anything. Sometimes less choices help the customer.

When you try to target multiple markets – which is different types of customers – at the same time, your messaging becomes blurred. Its like saying I sell condos, farmhouses and also industrial plots. This way you cannot be considered an expert on anything. If you are not considered an expert or a specialist, you are A Commodity. The only way to differentiate a commodity would be price.

So if you do have multiple choices to target a given market – go after them one by one. Segment the market into as fine a piece as possible. Dominate one segment and move to the other but be seen as an expert in each.

Companies like P&G, Unilever etc do this best. They have soaps which are targeted for white clothes and then they have variants within this. Then they have soaps for specialising in stain removal and they create variants within that.

If these multi-billion dollar organsiations who have so many choices of going to the market, still choose one market at a time, then for small companies its absolutely imperative that you only choose a single market first and then move into other categories.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Competition is a good thing

competition, Marketing, Positioning, scaling, Technology

In marketing if someone tells you they don’t have competition – then either there is no market or our person does not know where to play.

In the technology field you may have a window of opportunity of say a few months or maybe a year with your new product, but if you don’t see competition even on the horizon then you could be in the wrong market and that’s the scariest piece for a product management person in the technology field.

Most technology products or services are not born out of a specific need in the market. Most of the times companies keep tinkering and integrating various sub-modules to create a new product which the Product Management people are supposed to take to the market and convince their sales people to sell.

When you compete, a few things happen

It means that there’s a definable market. You can choose a niche within that market where you may have less competition or where you define the niche. Your positioning improves because someone has already taken one slot in the market.
It also means that you can aspire to pick up a larger piece of the market at a later date, so its not a FAD which will disappear as it came
Competition also helps you fine tune your product or service better. Since you see the challenges the competition is facing in providing the same product or service, you can account for it already
When you fight against a better competition you also hone your skills

I always get scared when I don’t see competition, even if its coming from a technology which is “n-1” from what we have, because then we know that there’s a market for the “n-1” at least. We just need to find enough people who have got disillusioned with it.

On the other hand I always admire how big companies like say P&G, Unilever or IBM etc. like to look at picking up a bigger piece of the market. They have such systematised methods to scale. I get to learn so much when they are in competition or when we join hands with one large company and compete against another large company. Its the best place to see how manager’s react , how decisions get made.

As they say, when you play a game against a better competitor you come out the winner either way – if you win, you win, but even when you lose you learn of the multiple things that you didn’t know off.

So always welcome competition.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!