Mirror Marketing :: Business901

Archive for Mirror Marketing

Dec

Future Framework for Understanding your Customers

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I think this is an interesting framework that is worth exploring this year. This decision model closely resembles where I think sales and marketing is headed. Our efforts will not be based on the traditional metrics as we know them now but how our stories, our content is being interpreted by our customers. For example, we will not place emphasis on traffic to our website but rather the way our content is interacted with and the patterns that are created.

Cynefin, pronounced kuh-nev-in, is a Welsh word that signifies the multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand. In this video, Dave Snowden introduces the Cynefin Framework with a brief explanation of its origin and evolution and a detailed discussion of its architecture and function.

The Cynefin Framework is central to Cognitive Edge methods and tools. It allows executives to see things from new viewpoints, assimilate complex concepts, and address real-world problems and opportunities. Using the Cynefin framework can help executives sense which context they are in so that they can not only make better decisions but also avoid the problems that arise when their preferred management style causes them to make mistakes.

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Categories : A3, Mirror Marketing

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Oct

Profiting from Customer Value

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I had the pleasure this past week of interviewing the co-author of the book Strategy from the Outside In, Christine Moorman for an upcoming Business901 Podcast. Christine is the T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor and founder of The CMO Survey at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

She stated that many strategies such has shareholder value, core competence, six sigma and right sizing have lured many companies into a dangerous internal focus, viewing the world from the inside out. As a result, companies lose sight of the market, which leads to poor results over the long run. Inside-out thinking distracts companies from the core purpose of a business: to create and serve customers.

In research for the podcast, I came across this video by the other co-author George S. Day. George is the Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor and co-Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this video he emphasized that we must stop looking at your customer as another competitive force but rather embracing how they perceive your relative market position. Understanding this as your market orientation will allow you to achieve greater revenue and profit. He also claims that this orientation with allow you to react sooner sooner to market shifts.

The four imperatives that are discussed in the video:

Be a customer value leader
Innovate new value for customers
Capitalize on the customer as an asset
Capitalize on the brand as an asset

If you have been reading my blog for any period of time, you realize George is preaching to the choir here. Great delivery and a real enforcer of why Customer Value is so important.

From the Driving Market Share Website: Every customer is looking for value, and practically every company claims to offer it. Yours is likely no exception. But do you really know what value means to your customers? If you suspected they were less than thrilled with your products and services, how would you go about discovering why? And if you discovered that you were missing a piece or two of the value equation, what would you do to address the problem? These are questions that every business leader should consider, especially in today’s economy. When you make an effort to figure out what value looks like to your customer—and take steps to provide it—the results can be extraordinary.very.

And remember, Customer Value is the best Leading Indicator of Growing Market Share.

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Oct

Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team

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In my Microsoft Newsletter this week, I received the following enticement:

Find, Keep, and Grow Customer Relationships with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Start Your 30-Day Free Trial Today!

Today, businesses are asked to do more with less. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online delivers exceptional value because it combines your everyday Microsoft Office applications with powerful CRM software accessed over the Internet to rapidly improve marketing, boost sales, and enrich customer service interactions. Try it now for 30 days! (This is not an affiliate Link).

I am trying it this week but what I wanted to share is a piece of the collateral information, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Power Couple. In this PDF, MSN highlighted the Customer Decision Making Process aka Mirror Marketing( Your Marketing Funnel from your Customer’s Perspective.) but extended the concept to show the process from several other points of view.

I have always been an advocate of seeking Sales and Marketing’s response to each of the customer’s decision steps but MSN (they are selling software), highlighted the technology enabler and a team response to the Customer Value Stream process. This simple exercise utilizing a high level Value Stream Map can really get your individual departments on the same page!

In my recent work, I have been advocating breaking down the Sales Silo and making Sales a team effort. In most organizations, I have been met with strong resistance to this concept. Most sales people look at as another silly initiative and most internal people see sales as a vehicle to customer data. As a result, sales resist and rightfully so preventing themselves from becoming an extended clerk. However, the approach really should be about how to increase face time with the customer. The #1 enabler of increased sales.

Create your own sales team by reviewing who responds to your Customer’s Value Stream Map. Start having a few meetings, similar to a daily standup meeting which may not be feasible. I would recommend at first error in having the meeting to often, just cut them short. In a spirit of true collaboration, don’t automatically exclude your customer from the team. This concept really could increase face time!

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Categories : Marketing Funnel, Mirror Marketing, Value Stream Marketing

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Oct

The Importance of the Value Proposition – Rackham

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If you follow my blog you know what a fan I am of SPIN Selling and Neal Rackham. Though I feel the book is getting somewhat dated, Rackham is still offering great advice.