"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy
HEADLINES: (Marketing Tips from Sales and Marketing Summit) Print-Friendly Version iPhone "Slap Down" Between Laura Ries and Seth Godin
-- as an update from the 2007 Sales and Marketing Summit, you might
recall a debate was initiated between marketing gurus Seth Godin and
Laura Ries over whether the iPhone was a fad or lasting product -- the
iPhone was to be launched shortly after our last Sales Summit. Seth, in his blog,
took on Laura Ries and predicted 2 million units would be sold in 2007
with more in 2008. The iPhone ended up selling 3.7 million in 2007!
Seth wins!! However, to Laura's point about convergence, most iPhone
users still need to carry two devices and two chargers since it's much
easier to use the iPhone with some kind of Bluetooth headset -- so
Laura also sort of wins. Note's Seth "it's nice to be right!...but it's
important to be willing to be wrong." When You Customize a Service it Becomes an Experience -- Jim Gilmore, author of The Experience Economy,
walked us through the progression of commerce: the agrarian economy was
about "extracting" commodities; the industrial economy was about
"making" tangible goods; the service economy was about "delivering"
intangible activities; and he maintains that the experience economy is
about "staging" memorable events i.e. Case Tomahawk building a huge
sandbox where prospects can come play with the huge earth moving
equipment they intend to purchase. His point -- we should look at the
key service points of interaction with our customers and figure out how
to make it more of a memorable experience. "...ing" the Thing -- the key is looking for
"..ings" in your product/service offering. Case Tomahawk focused on
"playing" with the earth moving equipment; Steinway did something
similar by focusing on a "piano-playing" experience (if you purchase a
Steinway they host a party in your home, provide a professional piano
player, and allow you to invite your friends. It becomes an experience
that normally results in two additional sales!). Gilmore even showed
how Coca-Cola Fountain "...ing'd" their briefcases (he explains in his
book). It's why we focused on "networking" at the event using the IntroNetworks
system (see who you match-up with among the 727 that have entered
profiles!) -- a way for the attendees to identify the five people they
must meet at the event. And from the feedback, it looked like it worked
for most of the attendees, helping to customize the experience for each
attendee. Identify a Place of Sacrifice -- Gilmore also
suggested looking at some existing "ings" in your business and seeing
where customers are not receiving a customized service i.e. the paying
process, invoicing process, etc. We're looking at our "registering"
process to see how we can make it more of a memorable experience -- and
one place where attendees have to sacrifice is picking where they are
seated at our events. It's decided by order of registration -- those
that put down earlier deposits get the best seats (BTW, almost 100 are
already holding seats for our Growth Summit October 21-22 -- the
infamous Tom Peters is headlining! -- reserve a seat now) but for some
they might prefer to be further back or closer to the door, etc. We're
looking into this. Where are your customers sacrificing and how can you
fix it? Most Brains Wins -- this is my latest mantra and what is underpinning the drive to create customer communities. Dell's IdeaStorm
website has received feedback from over 600,000 customers and garnered
almost 9000 ideas, including the need to standardize power cords for
laptops! Starbucks has followed suit. Jim Fowler, founder of Jigsaw,
showed us how companies like ours are using Jigsaw's collective rolodex
of over 300,000 sales people to update and clean-up our customer
databases. Our own Gazelles' Quarterly Theme wiki
now has 23 quarterly themes submitted by the readers of these insights
-- and we suspect we can get that to over 100 by the end of the year --
that's a significant database of knowledge well beyond what I could
contribute myself. What are you doing to tap into the collective
knowledge of your customers and allowing your customers to help each
other? Most Brains Frees Journalist from Jail -- using the
micro-blogging site Twitter, a young American journalist sent out a
one-word message "arrested" to alert fellow users of Twitter and other
bloggers what had happened to him in Egypt. They immediately sprung
into action, alerting others in their community and providing the
journalist with contacts that helped him secure his freedom. Here's a posting of his story. What's Your Biggest Challenge? Identify the five
people in our network that can help you. Take ten minutes to complete
your profile (the more detailed the better the system can help you) and
then take a look at the relationship map to see who are your top five
matches -- then send them a note. Les Rubenovitch shared how our system
matched one of his clients up with someone else in our network and now
the two of them are doing some significant business together. Take ten
minutes to "find your match" in our network of top executives of growth firms. Protecting your IP internationally -- Brett
Kingstone, founder of public company SuperVision (now Nexus Lighting),
shared his grueling story of having his IP stolen by a Chinese firm and
how he had to utilize his own private investigators to gather the
evidence necessary to gain a conviction and judgment award of $41
million (while the Chinese defendant used U.S. taxpayer provided legal
services to defend himself!). Kingstone has yet to collect a penny of
the judgment, but his story did bring to light the issue within
Congress. He mentioned a publication called Start-It that is tracking
the issue with positive suggestions on how you might protect yourself.
Here's a link to the Part 1 and Part 2 articles -- worth reading if you're doing business in other countries.