As the going gets tough, the keen amongst us will respond not by going but by fighting. To fight you must be in shape - lean and, focussed. We will have our house in order, we will have addressed our known internal weaknesses, removed excess baggage, maximised productivity and aligned our energies to the key tasks at hand - to competing.  This not only goes to kaizen-style new product development or manufacturing but to sales.  In tougher times, customers are more fussy, their expectations are raised, they consider harder any decisions to part with their money.  Consider applying six sigma thinking to your sales function.

Innovation is one of the most faked attributes of corporate business. Most alluring of the fundamental means of production; it evokes images of clever creativity, new answers, opportunities. Wow, exciting; yeah right. Trouble is pulling off new initiatives in mature businesses is very very tough.  There is a lot of talk about the new potential to involve customers in product development through co-creation and user forums etc but, if we are honest about it, most companies with established revenues and models will struggle to take advantage of these because of the inertia that resides insidiously inside their belly - the gut reaction of managers to act against change, against new ideas. They may want be seen to openly support innovation but in their heart they would rather see it wither on the vine. Change means risk of failure. Change means more to do. Change may threaten their place on the power tree. But saying no is easy, finding hoops for ideas to jump through is easy. The real heroes of innovation are those with the vision and faith to champion it.

Psychology has always been a great foundational discipline for marketing. Tara Hunt did a great job recently of bringing them together in her slide deck "happiness as your business model" - see it here discussed in relation to the Maslow hierarchy of needs or here with associated discussion on B2B. In the latter, Paul Marsden suggests that, if your B2B industry is characteristically poor at customer service, then you can really differentiate by making it your business to make your customers happy. Ask yourself:

1. How do we help clients be more autonomous?
2. How do we help clients be more competent?
3. How do we help clients interact with each other?
4. How do we help clients boost self-esteem?

Now we are talking. Here's to really bankable benefits of Web 2.0.

While we know web layout and print layout differ for many good reasons - such as the way users interact with the media. However, some web content is made for considered reading - and there are many instances when users will prefer, or even have to print content to use it as intended. I recently saw an application designed for collaborative enterprise reporting where the developers paid no mind to the requirement to print for use in team discussions, meetings or physical files. And let's face it, default web printing is usually ugly, un-paginated, and hyperlinked. Good technology starts with people and works back into data through systems. Do it the other way around and developers may have it easier but users won't - and which is more important?

Many sales people assume one way to immediately show a customer connection is to use their logo in a proposal document - either on the cover or throughout in the header/footer. The idea is probably to subliminally convey a partnering spirit by associating your brands together. This is a bad idea. Logos are important assets of a company, they are core elements of a brand identity and treated with respect by their owner. Companies will carefully define their own logo usage in identity guidelines. Why then would they feel good about another business, trying to start a relationship with them, taking their logo (probably in a low-res format from the web) and sticking it on a proposal back to them? Best intentions here are likely to backfire and create the opposite reaction because it is actually disrespectful, apart from abuse of copyright. Not a good way to start.

A fascinating illustration of how different people interpret the role of marketing and the rights of service providers to try and earn money on the internet is nowhere more clear than in discussion of social media.  Community and business can coexist symbiotically if each respects the needs of the other. Communities that are purely social will, like traditional clubs and societies ultimately suffer the weight of inevitable cost structures unless they are prepared to entertain business interests or attract philanthropy or public funding. And business interests will ultimately fail to achieve their goals if they are not sensitive to and and delivering to customer needs. The latter is all about marketing. And in the world of social media today, marketers have no choice but to lift their game and be very sensitive to the new psyche - else the backlash can be very public.  See the mashable vs income.com flame wars to see how hot it gets.

These are interesting times indeed for marketers and a clear challenge for us to step up. Many are struggling and experimenting with how marketing communications can infiltrate the open sharing world of social media; how can you go beyond simply emersing the brand message in the consumer world unless you "own the community". There is a world of difference in both advertising messages and sales instances between old guards like MSN or Amazon and Facebook or any one of the dozens of niche communities. This goes to the role marketing needs to play in the new world - marketing should step up and defend the fundamental business principles of embedding revenue models into web 2.0 ventures

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NZ sometimes prides itself as living on the edge. The edge is seen as the place change begins. Trouble is we don't always know which edge is leading.  Seth Godin's latest word is "edgecrafting" - for creating edges. Here edges are places that customers want you to be as opposed to the centres - where most competitors are. The idea is, if you offer something very edgy in this way, you will be remarkable. And, by definition, remarkable means people will be talking about you. Back to WOM again.  Read the book or the review. Good example seen recently is New York Times virtual tour of the Metropolitan Museum's new Greek and Roman Galleries - this big giveaway even got the fabulous Chuck Green remarking.

Check out the Rich Internet Application experience of the interface at EffectiveUI. Very intuitive.

I read in a magazine recently that it is now hip to be unavailable. Only the really important people work less hours and can disconnect. By this logic, the recent IDC/Nortel research suggests there are at least 16% of us who are very unimportant and a further 36% who are right behind. The hyperconnected are those using at least seven devices and nine applications to maintain connections (add up your own, you may be surprised). The focus of the research is on the implications that this culture of connectivity has for enterprises - blurred work/social boundaries and hours, productivity and security challenges etc. The personal implications are even less clear but if you are struggling with being always on, Jared Goralnick has some useful technotherapy.

On the subject of detractors, Connie Reece just posted a great case study (pdf) of a successful response to a negative post on an influential blog last year (see the dialogue here). Also reviewed at MarketingProfs. Key points:

1. respond - if you ignore it, the converstion will carry on amyway and you have no chance of influence
2. make sure you come across as genuine and reasonable (presumeably you want that in your brand)
3. don't get defensive - instead engage in a constructive conversation

Note - make this an opportunity to learn how some people in your audience might be reacting to your messages and use the limelight to correct it, if appropriate. Just do it  in an open, honest and fact based way and you may even come out ahead.

There's a nice and simple Forrester acronym and methodology (POST) on social media strategy to remind us when we set about connecting with people in this way we must start by thinking about our audience and what it is they want to do. Get it backwards and you are likely to create a ghost-town; a clever system but empty of life, of people. Jeremiah Owyang refers to this more @Cluetrain together with tips for those nervous about the corporate risk of detractors.

There's a new report out (pdf) that characterises the early adopter segment for technology in US consumer market.  No surprises really that they tend to be well-heeled, young males. The suggestion is that they represent the margin of change for mainstream consumption. As ReadWriteWeb points out, however, the product development industry also tends to be populated by the same "digitally savvy" segment - so may be limited in its insights to the majority and a little biased in its expectations of product features that translate as value to the rest. This is not a new debate: O'Reilly calls them alpha geeks and pointed out some time ago how to gain insight from them by applying common sense filters to make appropriate decisions.

Axiomatic of good sales and marketing documentation is knowing how your audience prefers to read. Why do many sales staff fail to follow this and instead seem a little lazy in dumping material upon poor customers who have to do all the work to get the message? Some examples of poor practice include:

• proposals sent attached to emails only - forcing customers to print them out if they want to read offline
• proposal attachments in a variety of formats - assuming your customer can open them all
• hyperlinks contained in the material pointing to further information on the web

Imagine you have gone through the bother of printing out all the proposal material from the vendor who is talking to you and made time to read it at home - only to find that you can't make a decision because important evidence is hyperlinked and you are reading a hardcopy. Duh!

breaking sound barrier

Working in sales gives you fascinating insights into human nature and organisational dynamics.  Seeing how managers process the rational logic around business risk and return against their own career risk and return shows up the leaders who can make breakthrough decisions.  Decisions that require vision and judgement to introduce new approaches to opportunities or problems require confidence and integrity to stand out above the crowd, and to then bring the crowd along with them.  

To that end, John Husband wrote a great piece last year about the wisdom of the organisational crowd, pointing out that, today, leadership is "less and less about charisma, command and control, and more and more about conversations and championing and channeling the wisdom of that organizational crowd (and increasingly that crowd includes the customers, the suppliers, the vendors .. the whole shebang)."  Great intersection between the power of information and its internal spread/communication using the tools of social media - management by walking around (MBWA) is now management by blogging around (MBBA).

The team at Velocity have some healthy advice for marketers on closing the sales and marketing divide. In their whitepaper, "Marketing meet Sales" (pdf), they list eleven practical tips:

1. Talk to customers and prospects directly
2. Talk to the sales people early
3. Harvest all ‘hot buttons’
4. Collect all objections
5. Find out who they’re calling
6. Find out what they’re reading
7. Build sales metrics into the brief
8. Track leads to sales
9. Create new products designed for sell-ability
10. Share ideas before they go live
11. Market your successes back to the sales force

The look of a proposal document is very important. Not only does it help convey the promise of a brand experience, but it has a very important role to play in conveying your message. If your document looks boring, it is likely (by definition) to lose your reader's attention. In fact, given the content may be dry, your look may need to work even harder to make want to people keep reading - and this goes way beyond brand colour, logo and typeface - your look includes graphic design to explain concepts (today there are even companies that specialise in proposal graphics). If your document looks unorganised, or is made up of many disparate pieces, your reader may feel they have to work too hard to get it. Your look also includes structure. Recognise that readers are unlikely to read neatly from front to back - so anticipate where they will go first and make it easy.  Readers are also likely to digest your material at two levels - "skim" and "read" - so make sure you capture your key messages in the skim, add an exec summary, and don't deluge them with text.  More tips on this topic are at RainToday (registration required).

 

We still come across proposals that jump straight into product descriptions or, worse, start by waxing on about the vendor (e.g. "we've been around 150 years and are really big" or "we are really great to work with"). The former comes across like you're just flogging stuff you want them to buy and the latter like you are simply full of yourself. Neither helps put the customer in a receptive frame of mind. They are reading your proposal presumably because you have qualified that they have a need you might be able to help with.  This is foremost in their thoughts so go there up front and show you listened. If you acknowledge their needs quickly and then link them to your services, clearly showing how your services can help, you are more likely to get your message through. You will show you respect their business and will be better able to support them going forward.

One great thing Web 2.0 and SaaS is doing for marketing is helping break down the barriers between companies and customers. These barriers exist at the boundaries between corporate content and customer content and around the edges of what we call products. If you accept the service dominant logic that  products are just ways we package services, then it helps to understand that customers buy a lot more from us than just the widget. They buy the whole experience we offer - from the enquiry through the purchase to the utilisation and support of our widget. And it is this experience that defines our brand.  This needs to be well understood deep inside our business strategy - it requires multi-disciplinary design coordination. Design for service, design for experience.

In the latest trendwatching brief, it seems being GREEN is now such a brand advantage that you best flaunt it