1.Genuine. Open, straightforward, comfortable in your skin; no BS or sugarcoating.
2.Passionate. You love and feel strongly about what you do and how you do it.
3.Articulate. Communicate thoughts, feelings, and insights in crystal clarity and simplicity.
4.Insightful. Ability to boil complex factors and mounds of data down to rare conclusions.
5.Determined. Driven and full of purpose, determined to achieve and succeed.
6.Confident. Not overconfident, but with enough self-doubt to be objective.
7.Humble. Willingness to admit mistakes, misjudgment, fear, and uncertainty is endearing.
8.Courageous. Willingness to take risks and take a position against considerable odds.
9.Funny. Not over-the-top, but in the right measure, brings down other’s defenses.
10.Empathetic. Connecting with others on an emotional level.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Friday, 4 June 2010
How do I bring value to customers the sales process?
* Geoffrey James: What’s the biggest limitation of the way companies sell B2B today?
* Jeff Thull:
Companies are not able to connect the value they provide to specific performance metrics (KPIs) within their customer’s organization and quantify the true financial impact their solution has on their customer’s business.
Most sales people are set up to communicate value by describing areas where their solution has an impact on individual organizations. However, that kind of value communication simply serves to commoditize the solution because their competitors are telling a similar story. What’s needed is a way to connect the value of the solution in terms of its ability to impact the customer’s ability to provide value to their own customers.
The key concept is that value doesn’t exist until it’s been achieved within your customer’s business.
How do you calculate value for a B2B solution?
There are three levels of value, increasing in order of complexity.
1. Product level - easiest to calculate -
characteristics of the product.
e.g. faster, more acurate or more durable and so forth.
Almost every company expresses value in this way as it is easiest to calculate and the value is seen as similar amongst competitors.
2.How a product changes a company’s processes.
e.g. It may reduce the labor required in the process, get the process completed faster or improve the quality of the process output.
In this case, the use of the solution within one process will likely impact process steps that precede the process your solution impacts as well as the processes that come after.
What makes this more difficult to measure is that you are now impacting cross-functional processes.
3. How those process changes actually make the company better able to service its own customers, and the financial impact that ability will have over time.
This cross-functional impact has a large multiplier effect as it ripples throughout the customer’s organization.
Can you give me an example?
Sure. Suppose that you’re selling a drug like Lipitor. Most sales people would address that sales opportunity by pointing out the value that’s inherent in the drug - it reduces cholesterol. That’s the first level of value.
However, the real value isn’t in that ability to lower cholesterol, but in the impact that a lower level of cholesterol has on the patient’s health. That’s the second level of value.
The highest level of value is the experience of life that the patient has as the result of remaining healthy for longer. That value is quite literally priceless.
I think I see what you mean. Can you give me a business example?
Take document imaging and document management. In most cases, document management solutions are sold based upon competitive contracts for millions of copies at a certain amount per page - a classic commodity sale.
However, if you go into a pharmaceutical firm and analyze the drug approval process, you discover that document management tools can cut the response time on a critical process step, responding to an information request from the FDA, from six weeks to two weeks.
That translates into labor savings, but more importantly, the cumulative effect of the shorter response times means that the drug gets approved more quickly, resulting in a more profitable product with less competition.
The impact is enormous - far beyond the savings that might be generated by a slightly lower cost per page in the document reproduction expense.
Why isn’t this way of thinking more common?
I think the main reason is the historical assumption that the buying customer will calculate the value, because they “know their business.”
The fact is they likely don’t know the unique impact of your type of solution.
Secondly, the people tasked with defining value - the marketing group - tend to depend on the customer to tell them the value - I guess this will sound cruel, but it is a bit like the blind leading the blind - and it is quite inadequate even at the product level of value.
We recently had a software client where the marketing group had provided the sales teams with 24 ways that their product creates value. Our analysis showed that 21 of the items on that list delivered less than 12% of the value, the top three on their list delivered 43% of the value and 45 percent of the REAL value came from just two items… both of which weren’t even on the original list.
How does this play out in a sales situation?
When a novice sales person tried to use those value points in a sales situation, it actually made the prospect LESS likely to buy. Because the list was so long, it made the product seem complicated, and each new item on the list required the prospect to consider how that value translated upward into the higher levels of value and what they would have to do to implement or use each feature. What’s worse, the list was almost identical to the list that the firm’s competitors were using, making the firm’s product seem like a commodity that could only compete on price.
That was the novice reps. What about the experienced ones?
What we found is that the top sales reps never used the value propositions that marketing had prepared for them. Instead, they focused on the two or three value items that made sense to the customer and built a story around them, showing how they would impact the prospect’s processes, and change the way that they operated. These top reps - and it was only about 3 to 7 percent, by the way - seemed to intuitively understand how to adapt the solution message to something that made sense to the prospect.
Why don’t companies simply change their value definitions?
In many cases, the sales executives themselves don’t understand these issues. In addition, the realization that a company has been selling value incorrectly in almost always something of an indictment of either sales management or the marketing group, implying that they don’t know how to do their job.
As a result, it’s usually only when a CEO recognizes they aren’t receiving the revenue growth they should from their high-value solutions that a company is able to focus long enough to address them adequately.
Is that how you’re helping companies?
We’re working with a number of companies, typically at a very high level, helping them quantify their “strategic value impact” and create a methodology for expressing connecting that value to specific performance metrics within their customers business.
The results have been quite dramatic. The foreword of the new edition of Mastering the Complex Sale explains how a division of Shell Oil applied this “higher level” of value quantification and went from $150 million from sales revenue with 110 salespeople to 750 million in sales revenue with 44 salespeople within five years.
* Jeff Thull:
Companies are not able to connect the value they provide to specific performance metrics (KPIs) within their customer’s organization and quantify the true financial impact their solution has on their customer’s business.
Most sales people are set up to communicate value by describing areas where their solution has an impact on individual organizations. However, that kind of value communication simply serves to commoditize the solution because their competitors are telling a similar story. What’s needed is a way to connect the value of the solution in terms of its ability to impact the customer’s ability to provide value to their own customers.
The key concept is that value doesn’t exist until it’s been achieved within your customer’s business.
How do you calculate value for a B2B solution?
There are three levels of value, increasing in order of complexity.
1. Product level - easiest to calculate -
characteristics of the product.
e.g. faster, more acurate or more durable and so forth.
Almost every company expresses value in this way as it is easiest to calculate and the value is seen as similar amongst competitors.
2.How a product changes a company’s processes.
e.g. It may reduce the labor required in the process, get the process completed faster or improve the quality of the process output.
In this case, the use of the solution within one process will likely impact process steps that precede the process your solution impacts as well as the processes that come after.
What makes this more difficult to measure is that you are now impacting cross-functional processes.
3. How those process changes actually make the company better able to service its own customers, and the financial impact that ability will have over time.
This cross-functional impact has a large multiplier effect as it ripples throughout the customer’s organization.
Can you give me an example?
Sure. Suppose that you’re selling a drug like Lipitor. Most sales people would address that sales opportunity by pointing out the value that’s inherent in the drug - it reduces cholesterol. That’s the first level of value.
However, the real value isn’t in that ability to lower cholesterol, but in the impact that a lower level of cholesterol has on the patient’s health. That’s the second level of value.
The highest level of value is the experience of life that the patient has as the result of remaining healthy for longer. That value is quite literally priceless.
I think I see what you mean. Can you give me a business example?
Take document imaging and document management. In most cases, document management solutions are sold based upon competitive contracts for millions of copies at a certain amount per page - a classic commodity sale.
However, if you go into a pharmaceutical firm and analyze the drug approval process, you discover that document management tools can cut the response time on a critical process step, responding to an information request from the FDA, from six weeks to two weeks.
That translates into labor savings, but more importantly, the cumulative effect of the shorter response times means that the drug gets approved more quickly, resulting in a more profitable product with less competition.
The impact is enormous - far beyond the savings that might be generated by a slightly lower cost per page in the document reproduction expense.
Why isn’t this way of thinking more common?
I think the main reason is the historical assumption that the buying customer will calculate the value, because they “know their business.”
The fact is they likely don’t know the unique impact of your type of solution.
Secondly, the people tasked with defining value - the marketing group - tend to depend on the customer to tell them the value - I guess this will sound cruel, but it is a bit like the blind leading the blind - and it is quite inadequate even at the product level of value.
We recently had a software client where the marketing group had provided the sales teams with 24 ways that their product creates value. Our analysis showed that 21 of the items on that list delivered less than 12% of the value, the top three on their list delivered 43% of the value and 45 percent of the REAL value came from just two items… both of which weren’t even on the original list.
How does this play out in a sales situation?
When a novice sales person tried to use those value points in a sales situation, it actually made the prospect LESS likely to buy. Because the list was so long, it made the product seem complicated, and each new item on the list required the prospect to consider how that value translated upward into the higher levels of value and what they would have to do to implement or use each feature. What’s worse, the list was almost identical to the list that the firm’s competitors were using, making the firm’s product seem like a commodity that could only compete on price.
That was the novice reps. What about the experienced ones?
What we found is that the top sales reps never used the value propositions that marketing had prepared for them. Instead, they focused on the two or three value items that made sense to the customer and built a story around them, showing how they would impact the prospect’s processes, and change the way that they operated. These top reps - and it was only about 3 to 7 percent, by the way - seemed to intuitively understand how to adapt the solution message to something that made sense to the prospect.
Why don’t companies simply change their value definitions?
In many cases, the sales executives themselves don’t understand these issues. In addition, the realization that a company has been selling value incorrectly in almost always something of an indictment of either sales management or the marketing group, implying that they don’t know how to do their job.
As a result, it’s usually only when a CEO recognizes they aren’t receiving the revenue growth they should from their high-value solutions that a company is able to focus long enough to address them adequately.
Is that how you’re helping companies?
We’re working with a number of companies, typically at a very high level, helping them quantify their “strategic value impact” and create a methodology for expressing connecting that value to specific performance metrics within their customers business.
The results have been quite dramatic. The foreword of the new edition of Mastering the Complex Sale explains how a division of Shell Oil applied this “higher level” of value quantification and went from $150 million from sales revenue with 110 salespeople to 750 million in sales revenue with 44 salespeople within five years.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
How do buyers make sales decisions?
As you probably remember, neuroscience tells us that the left side of brain is always looking for a right or wrong answer it doesn’t tolerate shades of gray. It tends to be analytical, linear and skeptical and emotionally neutral. It also tends gets “paralysis by analysis” because it can never get enough information to make what it feels will be an entirely correct decision. By contrast, the right side is creative and imaginative. The ‘big picture’ right side interacts with the feeling power of the limbic or emotional brain. The emotional brain is where the ‘aha’ moments happen. Where the “I want that” or “I need that” feelings happen. The buyer has “gut reaction” and an image that allows them to make an emotional decision, such as the decision to trust someone or buy something. They can feel it and see it rather than quantifying.
Stories appeal immediately to the right side of the brain. As soon as somebody hears “once upon a time…” or “I’d like to tell you a story about the time…”, the listener relaxes and knows that no decisions need to be made immediately, but instead all that’s needed is to go along for the ride and listen for what might be important in the future. When it IS time to make a decision, the right side of the brain (which actually makes the decision) draws upon the stories it’s heard in order to judge whether or not a decision makes sense. The story can actually engulf the listener and the teller. The connection during the story can remain between the two people after the story is over, leaving the top sales reps with a connection that others can’t achieve.
No, it doesn’t. Unfortunately, the corporate world tends to get left brain thinkers to create PowerPoint presentations that are intended to provide left brain information to the left brain thinkers. So you end up with these incredibly long sales cycles, with committees and endless analyses because, even though people make emotional decisions, they’re trying to find a way to make a decision logically. This isn’t to say that left brain information isn’t useful; but it doesn’t drive buying behavior unless framed in a story that makes sense to the right brain.
What do sales pros need to become great storytellers?
MB: Great question. First, they need to respect their own storytelling ability. I’ve found that most sales professionals are much better at telling stories from their personal lives - the sort of anecdote you tell to your friends and family - than they are at telling stories from their business lives. People tend to be more relaxed when relating personal anecdotes, but then get all formal and stilted when they tell business stories. So the first step is to learn to adopt the same style of storytelling in business that you use in your personal life. Top sales reps are always naturally good at this. Top sales reps are also willing to share themselves as humans not supermen. Buyers are human and so many sales people feel they have to be ‘perfect’. That isn’t reality, and top sales people sense that.
You use your storytelling ability to retell the customer’s story, and then confirm - by asking - whether you’ve actually got the story right. Then, and only then, are you ready to sell, because then you can retell the customer story with a different ending or a new sequel, with your offering playing a role in the story. It’s also useful to have a quiver of “here’s how I’ve helped other people” stories, so that you can help the prospect visualize a future that includes you and your offering.
One of the skills that I’m teaching is the ability to build a 30 second version, a 3 minute version, and a 10 minute version of your stories. This requires deciding what’s essential about the story, and what’s an optional anecdote, side plot, or detail. It’s really a matter of adapting the story to the circumstances, whether it’s a formal presentation or just an informal conversation at a social gathering.
http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=10193&tag=nl.e808
"The rider and the elephant" as described in Made to stick
Rider is rational, Elephant is emotional. Rider can guide and train the elephant, but when emotional shook, the rider is so much larger and stronger it can easily overpower the rider.
Stories appeal immediately to the right side of the brain. As soon as somebody hears “once upon a time…” or “I’d like to tell you a story about the time…”, the listener relaxes and knows that no decisions need to be made immediately, but instead all that’s needed is to go along for the ride and listen for what might be important in the future. When it IS time to make a decision, the right side of the brain (which actually makes the decision) draws upon the stories it’s heard in order to judge whether or not a decision makes sense. The story can actually engulf the listener and the teller. The connection during the story can remain between the two people after the story is over, leaving the top sales reps with a connection that others can’t achieve.
No, it doesn’t. Unfortunately, the corporate world tends to get left brain thinkers to create PowerPoint presentations that are intended to provide left brain information to the left brain thinkers. So you end up with these incredibly long sales cycles, with committees and endless analyses because, even though people make emotional decisions, they’re trying to find a way to make a decision logically. This isn’t to say that left brain information isn’t useful; but it doesn’t drive buying behavior unless framed in a story that makes sense to the right brain.
What do sales pros need to become great storytellers?
MB: Great question. First, they need to respect their own storytelling ability. I’ve found that most sales professionals are much better at telling stories from their personal lives - the sort of anecdote you tell to your friends and family - than they are at telling stories from their business lives. People tend to be more relaxed when relating personal anecdotes, but then get all formal and stilted when they tell business stories. So the first step is to learn to adopt the same style of storytelling in business that you use in your personal life. Top sales reps are always naturally good at this. Top sales reps are also willing to share themselves as humans not supermen. Buyers are human and so many sales people feel they have to be ‘perfect’. That isn’t reality, and top sales people sense that.
You use your storytelling ability to retell the customer’s story, and then confirm - by asking - whether you’ve actually got the story right. Then, and only then, are you ready to sell, because then you can retell the customer story with a different ending or a new sequel, with your offering playing a role in the story. It’s also useful to have a quiver of “here’s how I’ve helped other people” stories, so that you can help the prospect visualize a future that includes you and your offering.
One of the skills that I’m teaching is the ability to build a 30 second version, a 3 minute version, and a 10 minute version of your stories. This requires deciding what’s essential about the story, and what’s an optional anecdote, side plot, or detail. It’s really a matter of adapting the story to the circumstances, whether it’s a formal presentation or just an informal conversation at a social gathering.
http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=10193&tag=nl.e808
"The rider and the elephant" as described in Made to stick
Rider is rational, Elephant is emotional. Rider can guide and train the elephant, but when emotional shook, the rider is so much larger and stronger it can easily overpower the rider.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
What makes a good boss great?
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/12_things_that_good_bosses_bel.html
1. Have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
2. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe — and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.
8. One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.
1. Have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
2. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe — and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.
8. One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Top 10 worst marketing mistakes
Description: For decades, Apple priced the Macintosh at a premium over comparably-powered IBM-compatible PCs.
Why It Was Dumb: Apple marketing apparently believed that the added value of the Apple brand, and the superior usability of the product justified a higher price. But the truth is that as Windows became the de-facto standard, the Macintosh environment became a liability that would have required a LOWER price in order to compel people to continue to buy.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have understood that the incompatibility of the Apple product with the majority of other platforms represented a barrier to market entry, not an advantage. As such, they should have priced the Macintosh significantly lower than a comparably-powered PC and positioned it away from the business market.
______________
Mistake #9: Ignoring Computer Games
Description: Apple never attracted game developers to the Macintosh, never launched a game machine, and has only sporadically promoted the iPod and iPhone as handheld gaming platforms.
Why It Was Dumb: Since the main strength of the IBM-compatible PC was in business applications, the home and consumer market was available for an alternative platform. However, Apple’s appeal to the consumer market was vastly weakened by the fact that the Macintosh seldom had the latest and greatest games, which are THE killer applications for a home-based computer platform.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have moved hell and high water (i.e. paid big bucks) to make sure that game developers put their games on the Macintosh first. Beyond that, Apple marketing should have pressed the company to turn the Macintosh or a related product into a gaming console long before arch-rivals Microsoft and Sony locked up that market.
________________
Mistake #8: The Missing Sustainability Report
Description: Apple, alone of all the major high tech manufacturers, refuses to release an official report on the sustainability and environmental impact of its manufacturing and supply chain.
Why It Is Dumb: You’d think that a company with Al Gore on its board, and with a reputation for having “green” products, would realize that reinforcing that image is a good idea. However, Apple’s perceived secrecy around its environmental track record has raised the ire of environmentalists, attracting negative attention to Apple in an area that should be one of the company’s strengths.
The Obvious Alternative: In a recent proxy filing, Apple stated that “the board believes that the proposal has been substantially addressed and publication of an additional report would produce little added value while requiring unnecessary time and expense.” However, the amount of time and expense involved would be minimal compared to Apple’s huge marketing budget. So just publish the d**n report, OK?
______________
Mistake #7: Allowing Macintosh Cloning
Description: For a few years, Apple allowed other manufacturers to make Macintosh clones. The company later rescinded those licenses, driving those vendors quickly out of business.
Why It Was Dumb: The strategy was an obvious attempt to imitate the “success” of IBM’s strategy of an “open” PC platform. However, Apple failed to notice that IBM was struggling in the PC market (and would eventually sell it off), and that, in any case, an “open platform” strategy — which worked (sort of) in a geometrically growing market — didn’t make any sense in a mature market where the platform battle was already lost. In addition, the fact that Apple royally screwed its erstwhile partners didn’t win the company any friends in the marketplace, and drove even more potential partners into the Microsoft camp.
The Obvious Alternative: Don’t allow cloning of a product that’s value lies in being proprietary. To its credit, Apple marketing finally figured this out, but only after it became clear to everyone else in the world that Mac clones didn’t make any business sense.
_______________
Mistake #6: Continued Support of Apple TV
Description: Apple continues to promote the concept of Apple TV on its website and marketing materials.
Why It Is Dumb: The product is a widely seen as an industry joke. People don’t want to consume television in this way and there are numerous other platforms that do a much better job at both the delivery and the purchasing of the content.
The Obvious Alternative: It’s a zombie. Kill it.
_________________
Mistake #5: Sleeping with Microsoft
Description: Apple forged an alliance with Microsoft to get Microsoft’s office software on the Macintosh platform.
Why It Was Dumb: While Apple is finally in a position to get some well-earned revenge, the entire history of the Apple/Microsoft alliance has consisted of Apple dropping its pants and bending over a barrel. By focusing on Microsoft Office, Apple marketing continued to flog the idea of Macintosh as a business computer, rather than a consumer computer, thereby making certain that the IBM-compatible PC (which was always going to be the favored platform for Microsoft’s software) would remain dominant.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have put its energy into landing applications that were unique to the Macintosh, uniquely valuable to the home market, thereby positioning Apple as far as possible from Microsoft. Apple, of course, finally figured this out about five years ago with the iPod, but that was after a decade of getting regularly screwed by the giant of Redmond.
________________
Mistake #4: Treating Journalists Like Cockroaches
Description: Apple is widely known among business journalists and industry analysts as an insanely difficult company to work with. Their PR people seldom answer press inquiries and their executives treat journalists as unwanted pests.
Why It Is Dumb: You end up with articles like What’s the bug up Apple’s @$$? and When did Apple become uncool? And when you’re really stupid and have a business reporter arrested for reporting about your future product, you get TV coverage like the Jon Stewart video I’ve posted below.
The Obvious Alternative: While the field of business journalism does include its share of independent thinkers, most are more than willing to kiss corporate butt if you throw them a bone once in a while. Every other company in high tech manages to be helpful to the business press. Apple marketing’s continued arrogance is just plain stupid.
__________________
Mistake #3: Pretending They’re the Underdog
Description: Apple is still posing as the underdog, the scrappy fighter against the big bad forces of the IBM PC world.
Why It Is Dumb: Apple’s market valuation and yearly revenue is currently about the same as Microsoft. Eventually, even Apple fanboys will figure out that Apple is a corporate behemoth whose corporate headquarters resembles the movie set for an updated remake of 1984, replete with security cameras, secret codes, and all the accoutrement of a police state.
The Obvious Alternative: It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since Apple marketing devised the underdog story. Give it a rest, for cryin’ out loud. Apple marketing should build a story that fits Apple’s real status in the business world.
________________________
Mistake #2: Censoring the iPhone
Description: Apple recently purged 6,000 apps from the iPhone/iPod library that it deemed “too sexy.”
Why It Is Dumb: Porn is one of the big drivers of traffic on the Internet. If Apple is going to displace the current PC-based Internet environment, it will need to capture some of that traffic. Furthermore, the PC world of porn is having trouble monetizing content in a world where peer-to-peer sharing has become common, a problem that wouldn’t exist in the Apple environment. Apple marketing is therefore throwing away a multi-billion dollar revenue stream.
The Obvious Alternative: Woo-hoo!
______________
Mistake #1: The AT&T Exclusivity Agreement
Description: Apple granted AT&T exclusive rights to the iPhone until 2012.
Why It Was Dumb: The iPhone has been successful, sure, but think how much more successful it would be if it were supported by every carrier (or even more than just one carrier? The delay in getting the iPhone on other carriers has created a marketing opening for other platforms, like Android, which otherwise wouldn’t never have had even the ghost of a chance.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have landed multiple carriers with no exclusivity. Sure it would have been harder to negotiate such deals, but a really savvy marketing group would have understood the importance of NOT locking out the majority of a market during an all-important early adoption phase.
________________
Why It Was Dumb: Apple marketing apparently believed that the added value of the Apple brand, and the superior usability of the product justified a higher price. But the truth is that as Windows became the de-facto standard, the Macintosh environment became a liability that would have required a LOWER price in order to compel people to continue to buy.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have understood that the incompatibility of the Apple product with the majority of other platforms represented a barrier to market entry, not an advantage. As such, they should have priced the Macintosh significantly lower than a comparably-powered PC and positioned it away from the business market.
______________
Mistake #9: Ignoring Computer Games
Description: Apple never attracted game developers to the Macintosh, never launched a game machine, and has only sporadically promoted the iPod and iPhone as handheld gaming platforms.
Why It Was Dumb: Since the main strength of the IBM-compatible PC was in business applications, the home and consumer market was available for an alternative platform. However, Apple’s appeal to the consumer market was vastly weakened by the fact that the Macintosh seldom had the latest and greatest games, which are THE killer applications for a home-based computer platform.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have moved hell and high water (i.e. paid big bucks) to make sure that game developers put their games on the Macintosh first. Beyond that, Apple marketing should have pressed the company to turn the Macintosh or a related product into a gaming console long before arch-rivals Microsoft and Sony locked up that market.
________________
Mistake #8: The Missing Sustainability Report
Description: Apple, alone of all the major high tech manufacturers, refuses to release an official report on the sustainability and environmental impact of its manufacturing and supply chain.
Why It Is Dumb: You’d think that a company with Al Gore on its board, and with a reputation for having “green” products, would realize that reinforcing that image is a good idea. However, Apple’s perceived secrecy around its environmental track record has raised the ire of environmentalists, attracting negative attention to Apple in an area that should be one of the company’s strengths.
The Obvious Alternative: In a recent proxy filing, Apple stated that “the board believes that the proposal has been substantially addressed and publication of an additional report would produce little added value while requiring unnecessary time and expense.” However, the amount of time and expense involved would be minimal compared to Apple’s huge marketing budget. So just publish the d**n report, OK?
______________
Mistake #7: Allowing Macintosh Cloning
Description: For a few years, Apple allowed other manufacturers to make Macintosh clones. The company later rescinded those licenses, driving those vendors quickly out of business.
Why It Was Dumb: The strategy was an obvious attempt to imitate the “success” of IBM’s strategy of an “open” PC platform. However, Apple failed to notice that IBM was struggling in the PC market (and would eventually sell it off), and that, in any case, an “open platform” strategy — which worked (sort of) in a geometrically growing market — didn’t make any sense in a mature market where the platform battle was already lost. In addition, the fact that Apple royally screwed its erstwhile partners didn’t win the company any friends in the marketplace, and drove even more potential partners into the Microsoft camp.
The Obvious Alternative: Don’t allow cloning of a product that’s value lies in being proprietary. To its credit, Apple marketing finally figured this out, but only after it became clear to everyone else in the world that Mac clones didn’t make any business sense.
_______________
Mistake #6: Continued Support of Apple TV
Description: Apple continues to promote the concept of Apple TV on its website and marketing materials.
Why It Is Dumb: The product is a widely seen as an industry joke. People don’t want to consume television in this way and there are numerous other platforms that do a much better job at both the delivery and the purchasing of the content.
The Obvious Alternative: It’s a zombie. Kill it.
_________________
Mistake #5: Sleeping with Microsoft
Description: Apple forged an alliance with Microsoft to get Microsoft’s office software on the Macintosh platform.
Why It Was Dumb: While Apple is finally in a position to get some well-earned revenge, the entire history of the Apple/Microsoft alliance has consisted of Apple dropping its pants and bending over a barrel. By focusing on Microsoft Office, Apple marketing continued to flog the idea of Macintosh as a business computer, rather than a consumer computer, thereby making certain that the IBM-compatible PC (which was always going to be the favored platform for Microsoft’s software) would remain dominant.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have put its energy into landing applications that were unique to the Macintosh, uniquely valuable to the home market, thereby positioning Apple as far as possible from Microsoft. Apple, of course, finally figured this out about five years ago with the iPod, but that was after a decade of getting regularly screwed by the giant of Redmond.
________________
Mistake #4: Treating Journalists Like Cockroaches
Description: Apple is widely known among business journalists and industry analysts as an insanely difficult company to work with. Their PR people seldom answer press inquiries and their executives treat journalists as unwanted pests.
Why It Is Dumb: You end up with articles like What’s the bug up Apple’s @$$? and When did Apple become uncool? And when you’re really stupid and have a business reporter arrested for reporting about your future product, you get TV coverage like the Jon Stewart video I’ve posted below.
The Obvious Alternative: While the field of business journalism does include its share of independent thinkers, most are more than willing to kiss corporate butt if you throw them a bone once in a while. Every other company in high tech manages to be helpful to the business press. Apple marketing’s continued arrogance is just plain stupid.
__________________
Mistake #3: Pretending They’re the Underdog
Description: Apple is still posing as the underdog, the scrappy fighter against the big bad forces of the IBM PC world.
Why It Is Dumb: Apple’s market valuation and yearly revenue is currently about the same as Microsoft. Eventually, even Apple fanboys will figure out that Apple is a corporate behemoth whose corporate headquarters resembles the movie set for an updated remake of 1984, replete with security cameras, secret codes, and all the accoutrement of a police state.
The Obvious Alternative: It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since Apple marketing devised the underdog story. Give it a rest, for cryin’ out loud. Apple marketing should build a story that fits Apple’s real status in the business world.
________________________
Mistake #2: Censoring the iPhone
Description: Apple recently purged 6,000 apps from the iPhone/iPod library that it deemed “too sexy.”
Why It Is Dumb: Porn is one of the big drivers of traffic on the Internet. If Apple is going to displace the current PC-based Internet environment, it will need to capture some of that traffic. Furthermore, the PC world of porn is having trouble monetizing content in a world where peer-to-peer sharing has become common, a problem that wouldn’t exist in the Apple environment. Apple marketing is therefore throwing away a multi-billion dollar revenue stream.
The Obvious Alternative: Woo-hoo!
______________
Mistake #1: The AT&T Exclusivity Agreement
Description: Apple granted AT&T exclusive rights to the iPhone until 2012.
Why It Was Dumb: The iPhone has been successful, sure, but think how much more successful it would be if it were supported by every carrier (or even more than just one carrier? The delay in getting the iPhone on other carriers has created a marketing opening for other platforms, like Android, which otherwise wouldn’t never have had even the ghost of a chance.
The Obvious Alternative: Apple marketing should have landed multiple carriers with no exclusivity. Sure it would have been harder to negotiate such deals, but a really savvy marketing group would have understood the importance of NOT locking out the majority of a market during an all-important early adoption phase.
________________
Thursday, 20 May 2010
PWG - NO
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT SUCH A NOTION, __ .
YOU DON'T CHANGE PILOTS MID FLIGHT, __ .
THAT IS OUT OF SCOPE FOR TODAY's DISCUSSION, __ .
I'M JUST A LITTLE CONCERNED THAT IF WE DIGRESS ANY FURTHER WE WILL OVERRUN, __ .
I'M GOING TO HAVE TO STOP YOU THERE, __ .
IN MY OPINION THIS NOTION IS ONLY PARTIALLY RIGHT AND LET ME TELL YOU WHY, __ .
I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN AND I THINK IT MAKES SENSE, HOWEVER CONSIDER THIS, __ .
THAT IS CERTAINLY ONE WAY TO LOOK AT IT, BUT ANOTHER IS LIKE THIS, __ .
I SEE YOUR POINT BUT CONSIDER THIS, __ .
I WOULD LIKE TO CONTEST THAT POINT, __ .
I refuse to accept that, __ .
I'M NOT ENTIRELY SURE I AGREE, __ .
I DON'T BELIEVE THAT IS THE MOST OPTIMAL|FEASIBLE IDEA AND I'LL TELL YOU WHY , __ .
WE DON'T WANT TO SET A PRECEDENT BY ALLOWING, __ .
WE ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO, __ .
IT SITS OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS OF MY RESPONSIBILITY/KNOWLEDGE, __ .
THERE'S NO FREE LUNCH, __ .
THROWING TOYS OUT OF THE COT, __ .
I HAVE A FULL PLATE, __ .
I DO NOT HAVE THE BANDWIDTH, __ .
ALL HAT AND NO CATTLE, __ .
WE ARE NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET, __ .
ITS NOT FULLY BAKED, __ .
IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE CHASING RAINBOWS, __ .
I WASNT INVOLVED. IVE GOT CLEAN HANDS, __ .
ALL BETS ARE OFF, __ .
ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD.
DON'T WANT TO JUST PULL THE SHUTTERS DOWN, __ .
THAT WAS A RESOUNDING NO, __ .
ITS NOT OPTOMISED FOR, __ .
NOW, THAT'S NOT TO SAY, __ .
ITS NOT YET BREACHED, __ .
GOOD INGREDIENTS DO NOT NECESSARILY MAKE GOOD SAUCE, __ .
I'M NOT EXPECTED TO, __ .
WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO, __ .
WE ARE NOT EXPECTED TO, __ .
IT IS NOT A SLAM DUNK BUT IT WILL SUFFICE, __ .
ITS NOT RESTRICTED TO, __ .
THEY HAVE NOT BEEN VERY FORTHCOMING, __ .
THERE IS NOTHING TO SUGGEST THAT, __ .
IT DOES NOT INSPIRE CONFIDENCE, __ .
BY NO STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION, __ .
DON'T HAVE ENOUGH CARDS TO PLAY, __ .
I DON'T HAVE AN OPINION ON THIS, __ .
That's a NEGATIVE there John, __ .
Well that's NOT ENTIRELY TRUE, __ .
IT ALLOWS NO DEVIATION, __ .
I would be hesitant to, __ .
It can definitely be achieved, no question. However it will require a development effort, __ .
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice.In practice, there is. , __ .
IT HAS FALLEN ON DEAF EARS, __ .
I DO NOT HAVE THE BANDWIDTH, __ .
THE JURY IS STILL OUT ON THAT ONE, __ .
Null and void, __ .
there is no cause for concern in my opinion, __ .
no way, shape or form, __ .
If you cannot compete with no competitors then compete with slow compeititors, __ .
no one has ever been fired for buying Microsoft, __ .
THAT FUNCTIONALITY IS NOW DEPRECATED, DEFUNCT IF YOU WILL, __ .
Its a fire hose approach, only on or off, there is no middle ground, __ .
There is no need to force the issue, __ .
Its hanging in the balance, __ .
There is no single silver bullet that will fix everything, __ .
There is no future in vanilla for most companies in a flat world. - the commercial future belongs to those who know how to make the richest chocolate sauce, the sweetest, lightest whipped cream, and the juiciest cherries to sit on top, or how to put them all together into a sundae.Vanilla will be provided free by the OS community, __ .
Its like digital cameras, no one knew they needed one until they had one. Then they couldnt live without one, __ .
YOU DON'T CHANGE PILOTS MID FLIGHT, __ .
THAT IS OUT OF SCOPE FOR TODAY's DISCUSSION, __ .
I'M JUST A LITTLE CONCERNED THAT IF WE DIGRESS ANY FURTHER WE WILL OVERRUN, __ .
I'M GOING TO HAVE TO STOP YOU THERE, __ .
IN MY OPINION THIS NOTION IS ONLY PARTIALLY RIGHT AND LET ME TELL YOU WHY, __ .
I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN AND I THINK IT MAKES SENSE, HOWEVER CONSIDER THIS, __ .
THAT IS CERTAINLY ONE WAY TO LOOK AT IT, BUT ANOTHER IS LIKE THIS, __ .
I SEE YOUR POINT BUT CONSIDER THIS, __ .
I WOULD LIKE TO CONTEST THAT POINT, __ .
I refuse to accept that, __ .
I'M NOT ENTIRELY SURE I AGREE, __ .
I DON'T BELIEVE THAT IS THE MOST OPTIMAL|FEASIBLE IDEA AND I'LL TELL YOU WHY , __ .
WE DON'T WANT TO SET A PRECEDENT BY ALLOWING, __ .
WE ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO, __ .
IT SITS OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS OF MY RESPONSIBILITY/KNOWLEDGE, __ .
THERE'S NO FREE LUNCH, __ .
THROWING TOYS OUT OF THE COT, __ .
I HAVE A FULL PLATE, __ .
I DO NOT HAVE THE BANDWIDTH, __ .
ALL HAT AND NO CATTLE, __ .
WE ARE NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET, __ .
ITS NOT FULLY BAKED, __ .
IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE CHASING RAINBOWS, __ .
I WASNT INVOLVED. IVE GOT CLEAN HANDS, __ .
ALL BETS ARE OFF, __ .
ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD.
DON'T WANT TO JUST PULL THE SHUTTERS DOWN, __ .
THAT WAS A RESOUNDING NO, __ .
ITS NOT OPTOMISED FOR, __ .
NOW, THAT'S NOT TO SAY, __ .
ITS NOT YET BREACHED, __ .
GOOD INGREDIENTS DO NOT NECESSARILY MAKE GOOD SAUCE, __ .
I'M NOT EXPECTED TO, __ .
WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO, __ .
WE ARE NOT EXPECTED TO, __ .
IT IS NOT A SLAM DUNK BUT IT WILL SUFFICE, __ .
ITS NOT RESTRICTED TO, __ .
THEY HAVE NOT BEEN VERY FORTHCOMING, __ .
THERE IS NOTHING TO SUGGEST THAT, __ .
IT DOES NOT INSPIRE CONFIDENCE, __ .
BY NO STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION, __ .
DON'T HAVE ENOUGH CARDS TO PLAY, __ .
I DON'T HAVE AN OPINION ON THIS, __ .
That's a NEGATIVE there John, __ .
Well that's NOT ENTIRELY TRUE, __ .
IT ALLOWS NO DEVIATION, __ .
I would be hesitant to, __ .
It can definitely be achieved, no question. However it will require a development effort, __ .
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice.In practice, there is. , __ .
IT HAS FALLEN ON DEAF EARS, __ .
I DO NOT HAVE THE BANDWIDTH, __ .
THE JURY IS STILL OUT ON THAT ONE, __ .
Null and void, __ .
there is no cause for concern in my opinion, __ .
no way, shape or form, __ .
If you cannot compete with no competitors then compete with slow compeititors, __ .
no one has ever been fired for buying Microsoft, __ .
THAT FUNCTIONALITY IS NOW DEPRECATED, DEFUNCT IF YOU WILL, __ .
Its a fire hose approach, only on or off, there is no middle ground, __ .
There is no need to force the issue, __ .
Its hanging in the balance, __ .
There is no single silver bullet that will fix everything, __ .
There is no future in vanilla for most companies in a flat world. - the commercial future belongs to those who know how to make the richest chocolate sauce, the sweetest, lightest whipped cream, and the juiciest cherries to sit on top, or how to put them all together into a sundae.Vanilla will be provided free by the OS community, __ .
Its like digital cameras, no one knew they needed one until they had one. Then they couldnt live without one, __ .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)