“Do you create video datasheets?” a prospective customer asked me in a recent sales call. “We’ve got the basics covered,” he continued. In this instance, the customer referred to their existing collection of case studies, customer success stories, data sheets, business and technical white papers as the basics. Unlike this prospect, most customers and prospects we come across haven’t got their basics covered.

All the noise about social media and how it is going to change marketing as we know it has only added to the confusion of B2B marketers. Before you try to leverage your Twitter or Facebook presence, getting the basics right is important. Yep, the need to cover the basics has not gone away. If anything your 140-character tweet or short blog post better be backed up by good old content – content that’s useful to the reader and helps position your company and its offerings appropriately. One of the best ways of doing this is with white papers.

A good white paper helps

• Educate the reader about a situation or a problem in simple and clear terms
• Explain potential solutions or alternatives for the problem or opportunity
• Ideally provides a framework or checklist for the reader to make a choice amongst the alternatives

If you do the above well, you will achieve the following benefits for yourself

• Thought leadership – where prospects and customers will look to you for leadership
• Better leads resulting in faster sales – because educated customers make better buyers
• Improved competitiveness – as customers see your offerings in the larger context of their challenges

Much as radio has survived the video revolution and adapted and thrived in the internet era, so too white papers continue to be relevant and critical in your B2B marketing tool kit.

A marketing consultant recently narrated his experience in selling market research services to businesses. He had diligently segmented his market and zeroed in on his target segment. But to his dismay, the businesses that he thought needed his services the most, were the ones who were dragging their feet on decisions. Many of us have had this experience. Is there a way to proactively avoid this situation?

Classical segmentation – revenue, size, vertical, geography – is a good way to get started. But as professional service providers, we need to be recognize that our buyers within the target company might have an agenda that needs to be negotiated. The model below of prospects is one way of segmenting the market.

Do not see the benefits of your offering.	Buyer of your services sees the benefit. But he is faced with the dilemma “This is my job. How can I outsource this to you?”	Have a huge need for your services. Lack the skills internally. No one in the organization currently performs the job.	Large organizations with well-established practices for outsourcing. Typically time-constrained. Appreciate the value of your services.
Should not be pursued.	Should be engaged if only to unearth objections to your offerings.	Should be pursued aggressively. Qualify early for their ability to buy your services.	Should be pursued aggressively. Have ability to pay. Need to have a clear and crisp story on why your service offering is better than others.

The above model provides a quick and easy way to segment prospects for your professional services. It may need to be tweaked for your industry and offering, but the pattern plays out quite often across industries. Following this model helps you cut through the initial noise and stay focused on where you are most likely to succeed.

So here are our 5 steps for a successful relationship with your PR partner.

Ask a marketer “Who is your customer?” and chances are that you will get a response that ranges from “Hmm… I think….” to a long-winded “My customer is someone who is … and … and.” The truth is, most of us have difficulty answering this seemingly harmless, but important question. More often than not it is because we have not examined our markets closely.

The whitepaper discusses

• What does “segment your market” mean
• Why is market segmentation necessary
• Framework for market segmentation

Download the white paper now!

Days of adrenalin rush are punctuated by depressing troughs of lost opportunities, marketing & engineering missteps, with the occasional remind-me-why-we-are-doing-this days. We’ve had our share of these  — as well as coached clients and friends through such phases. One key insight we garnered from these experiences is the need to understand why people start companies* and to answer for yourself, why you started or are planning to start a business. This piece of self knowledge can help the company and you stay focused and manage the ups and downs of a startup.

1. Personal pain point – Many small, and the occasional large corporation, get their start from a personal pain point that the founder faced. Recent examples of companies that would fall into this category include Redbus and earlier eBay.  The pain of trying to get info (and tickets) for a intercity bus triggered the founder of Redbus to get rolling.
2. Passion - In many ways this is opposite of the personal pain point. The passion a person has for a subject or activity drives them to start a business. While they may still find getting a bus ticket difficult, they focused on what they enjoyed or loved and began a business.  Examples of such startups include folks who love hiking (MuddyBoots), doing craft (Etsy), collecting books (LibraryThing), or helping people find their true career (iReboot)
3. Expertise - Most consulting and high technology product companies fall into this category. While the founders may face many personal paint points (how do you get Indian drivers to drive safely) and may be passionate about any number of subjects (music, books, educating children), they focus on starting businesses that leverages the special expertise they bring.  We are expert analog designers (Cosmic Circuits), technology marketers (<blush> Zebugroup) or search pioneers (Google).
4. Market Gap – In many ways personal pain, passion or expertise are inside out approaches to starting a business. When an unaddressed need or gap is found in the market, entrepreneurs – even if they have no expertise in the domain – can run in to fill the gap. Badri Seshadri, serial entrepreneur says about his lastest startup “I loved reading and couldn’t find a whole lot of subjects covered in Tamil or other vernacular books – so we started New Horizon Media.” Other example of startups who have come into fill gaps in the marketplace include Amagi (local advertising on Indian TV) and YCombinator (2.0 entrepeneurs need a whole lot less money but need a fast leg up)
5. Diversification - This, while mostly applicable to companies or businesses already underway, is particularly true for proprietor-owned businesses we see in India. If done too early in a startup’s life it can be distracting if not downright disastrous. Apple entering the phone business (and dropping computer from its name), or Flipkart starting to sell DVDs and cell phones are a couple of recent examples of diversification. It can be a way for startups with multiple founders to find their own interests (spin offs) or explore new businesses while not burning bridges on their present business.

As consultants, we find ourselves advising others (and at times ourselves) to follow the money – which might lead one to believe doing a startup to address a market gap is the best strategy. However rarely are things that clear. Entrepreneurs by their very nature perceive gaps well before customers are prepared to acknowledge them. And being early to market can be one of the most frustrating, and potentially bankrupting experiences.

Ideally one or more of the internally focused items – personal pain, passion or expertise overlaps with a market gap so that both the external opportunity and internal motivation sustain your journey to success. So it’s worth asking yourself every so often, “Why am I in business?”

–
*Much of the credit for these 5 reasons has to go to my colleague Bikash Chowdhury who first formulated them.

How do these companies get into such an enviable position? How can you get your own company and products positioned with such clarity? Our whitepaper “How to create a great positioning statement” explains what is a positioning statement and how to create a great one, as a first step to creating a strong association in the customer’s mind.

Specifically, the paper covers these four key points

• What is a positioning statement
• Why is a positioning statement important
• What needs to go into a positioning statement
• A framework for creating a positioning statement

The paper also provides illustrations of good positioning statements from large and small companies such as,

Synaptics is a leading worldwide developer of human interface solutions for mobile computing, communications, and entertainment devices. Our company is uniquely suited to meet the needs of the emerging digital lifestyle trends for innovative, intuitive human interfaces for consumer electronic devices.

Download the white paper now!

Bad news for HR and engineering mangers is of course good news for talented employees, who are in greater demand and yes, good news for sales folks. This rise of attrition is the most definitive indicator, even if a lagging one, of improving demand in the marketplace and therefore increasing chances of revenue. So for all of us sales folks who’ve struggled – hopefully playing the hardworking ant – in the downturn, finally some good news seems on the horizon. Whilst the rising tide of a growing economy will pick up all of our boats, it’s likely to do better for those of who go don’t forget the basics.

One such basic is the ACB selling technique – yep ACB not ABC.  Most sales funnels can be divided into three regions – a large hopper – the top most portion, where in you are drawing a large number of leads (C), the narrowing mid-section (B) which are leads likely to convert into real deals and finally the narrow neck (A) which convert into paying customers.

In the downturn, we all (grasshoppers at one level) likely chased every little deal – however inconsequential – if it looked like it would close (the As). And in the little time left between trying to close deals we tried to move those active prospects (the Bs) to the next step.  And how many of us were truly ants continuing to work the leads (Cs), that were still early and likely to take a while to even become prospects (Bs) before fructifying into a real paying customer?

The ACB method eschews a linear traversal of the sales pipeline from the highest probability (A) deals to the lowest (C). Instead you

• work the As first and once done with them or having parked them at a logical break point,
• move on to your Cs – this way you ensure a steady flow of prospects B. Given the size of C and usually their state of uncertainty, allocate a finite amount of time each day to it – or at least a minimum fixed amount of time each week,
• finally work on your B’s to help move them forward from being prospects to paying customers.

The key here is to work on your Cs (leads) every day – as the As and Bs will demand and get the time they need. However, the longer we go without working the Cs, the greater the probability that the pipeline will dry up with Bs shrinking and the As won’t be too far behind.

The simplest way I’ve found to work the ACB system is to set aside some time each day, usually 30 minutes would do the job to follow up on the Cs. Others have done it three days a week. It could be the first thing in the morning, if that’s when your leads are available, or mid-day just before lunch or your afternoon break, so that there’s a fixed time that doesn’t squeezed out – you treat it like a standing meeting – one that you cannot excuse yourself from.   So get started today and you can discover what works for you as long as you cover all  your Cs once each week. Happy hunting!

Even trusty Google, spews 73 million results (in 0.24 seconds at that!) for the search phrase “Social Media Marketing” – making me want to close the browser window and head out to catch re-runs of Seinfeld.

Luckily in a recent weekly meeting  of the Small Business Buzz forum, one of the participants made a comment about when do get on to social media – this itself can serve as a good starting point for explaining what’s all this social media stuff.

@BethBridges: Q2: Don’t get on any SM until you understand how to be excellent Face2Face networker: ie, give first, don’t sell, longterm perspectv #sbbuzz

Social media is nothing but engaging with your customers, prospects, partners even employees and neighbors. In the old days you did it face-to-face – and called it networking or meeting. The face-to-face meets usually meant you had to be present in close proximity to your audience and involved a few people to small groups unless you were at the company all-hands meeting. Technology and the ever-evolving nature of the web now allows you to do this, just as effectively with even folks who are not physically present – whether the same few folks all the way to very large groups.

The golden rule for social media is — no big surprise here — Don’t do stuff online that you wouldn’t do in person!

• Be consistent – people should see you and hear from you at a reasonable and consistent frequency
• Be generous – Give first! Before you ask for anything make sure you have contributed first and give freely
• Be considerate – don’t hog the air – allow others to express themselves – state any ground rules up front
• Be yourself – anyone with whom you intend to build a long term relationship better know the real you
• Be patient – technology has made it easier to reach out – but relationships still take time

Me: Do you use CRM?

CxO: Yes, we do use CRM

Me: What does that mean?

CxO: Well… we recently purchase a Siebel license.. We use Salesforce….We use …you get the point

Me: Are people using it?

CxO: Everyone in the sales team has been given an account

Clearly CRM means different things to different people. A large percentage of people feel that CRM is about the tool. If I purchase a tool, my customer management problems are solved. Right? Wrong.

A study conducted by the Gartner Group reports that of the CRM software licenses purchased in 2002, a whopping 42 percent is unused—at an estimated waste of $1 billion to $1.26 billion to companies that purchased the software.

A CRM tool is only a step, not even the first, in solving your customer management problem.

CRM is about managing your customer relationship
in a way that the customer perceives and
values it, which in turn benefits the business.

Much of it has to do with the DNA and the culture of the organization vis-a-vis its attitude towards its customers. If the organization feels that a customer exists only for signing the check, then any amount of technology will not solve your customer management problems.

CRM starts with the culture of the business. It starts with how the business values its customers. If this vital element is in place, then

defining the service levels for customer relationship management, the business objectives and the metric are the next step.

Sensitizing and educating the customer facing organizations – sales, marketing, support, the person at the front desk – in delivering the desired service levels is the next step. The tool or the technology comes only after this.

The tool is the enabler – it helps us address the customer management issue, but it is not the solution in itself.

So next time you hear someone talk about CRM, it is time to ask, “How does the customer benefit?“

Should the marketing team in your company consider social media for their marketing plan? During these times of ever-shrinking marketing budgets, there are some who think social media is a passing fad. Kipp Bodnar of Howard, Merrell & Partners presents 5 reasons why social media is more relevant than ever for B2B marketing.

• Visibility Businesses can’t afford to have their online presence limited to a five-page company website. Social media helps them reach out to customers and prospects where they are.
• Customer feedback It can help the sales team present information to prospective clients, on how their product has evoked positive customer feedback.
• Insight Social media helps the marketing team stay on top of what’s going on in customers’ and suppliers’ industries.
• Buyers are social A new report by Forrester Research shows that buyers in the B2B area are one of the most social groups around.
• Hiring Companies that adopt social media project an image of being open to the changing online landscape and stand to win in the war for better talent.

Click here to read the full article.