Part 7 (2/2)
The questions boil down to: ”How comfortable am I with your expertise, your interpersonal skils, and your dedication to my success; and do I believe that you can actual y do the el ?” The answers a buyer coe part the result of substantial interaction between you and a prospective client, and less the result of
Your brand, however, can have a substantial iet into the discussion at al when a buyer has a need
2 A buyer's predisposition to want to buy fro other options to solve the problem
3 A buyer's desire to solve the problems that you can help the buyer solve
4 The ease of your winning the business during your business development process
5 Expectations of the behaviors of your teaure 91 Marketing Execution The first task, then, is building the foundation upon which you can establish the strongest brand possible for you and your fires before they becoe 1 AwarenessStage 2 InterestStage 3 Purchase IntentStage 4 Pipeline Opportunity Awareness can manifest itself in a nu your name out there,” as many people like to say You need the market to know that you exist as wel as that a particular service or solution exists As Johnny Carson ont to say, ”I didn't know you could do that!” If buyers don't know they can solve a particular problem or don't know they can solve it in a new or novel way, you won't get any chances to sel anything
Perhaps your service is not a new concept to the market, but it is new service for you If people don't know you solve a particular problem, they won't come to you when the proble exists (a co inside that company) won't even have the chance to be buyers Awareness is a precondition for purchase
While a buyer ht be aware that you exist, and, as we stated, awareness is a precondition for purchase, theyany of the probleht not even knohat you do; thus, of course, they're not interested in buying anything from you yet They're probably not curious about your company and probably not curious about your services and definitely not curious about the results you've gotten for others
assu attention-awareness AND interest A buyer h I'l check the exists, I see they do this kind of service for these kinds of companies in this situation But unfortunately for theet help in this area right now”
This buyer has awareness and interest, but no purchase intent The question then becomes, ”Why don't you want or need what I do?” Perhaps the buyer is satisfied with his current provider Maybe you solve a particular problem, and the buyer does not perceive that problem to be an issue for hiht not be ih to solve Maybe the buyer has a problem and understands that you say you solve it, but he doesn't real y believe you The reasons go on, the point being that buyers are not going to buy so unless they put it on their to-do list to take action
Let's now assume that the buyer intends to solve a particular problem and knows you exist and that you communicate that you solve that particular problem Next you need to convert the buyer into your pipeline, or, as we say in the enerate the buyer as a lead
Unlike products or simple transactional services, buyers don't usualy walk into a retail store and go from purchase intent to purchase without some kind of substantial interaction with you It's yourand business developo to work for you in translating a buyer's purchase intent into a genuine pipeline opportunity
To create awareness, interest, purchase intent, and pipeline opportunity, you need twoWith corporate identity, there is power in a nao, and a symbol Your brand identity serves as the foundation of the rest of thehich you co key es, you coraphic areas, functional areas, levels in the organization); the problems you solve; the methods you use to solve those proble serves as wel in a coainst other options available to the lines, brand proe on your web site are al exa to the ure 92 Value Proposition Delivery Substantiation Through substantiation, you take who you are and what you say that you do (positioning) and give the enuine and defensible Substantiation can be delivered in one of tays: deep diveand personal interaction
Seminars, speeches, webinars, teleseminars, podcasts, on-demand Internet presentations, white papers, books, articles, research reports, and case studies are al exaive clients and prospects the ability to dive deeply into who you are without you personal y interacting with them These approaches al ow theood fit for their needs
”A e to firms of every size: Every one of your prospects and recruits looks at your web site Guaranteed If they're serious about hiring or joining you, they'll really look at your web site We designed our current web site as a repository of detailed, specific information so that people could find the information most valuable to their particular search Now, it needs to be eted communications with new,Officer, Perkins Coie Personal interactions such as face-to-face discussions (sales conversations), telephone discussions, tay e-es, and, of course, the actual delivery of services are the most powerful way to relay to the market that you can, and do, live up to the proether, think of your positioning and substantiation as the vehicles through which you deliver your value proposition to the market
assume, if you wil , that prospects read and see every piece of positioning and substantiationmaterial and intel ectual capital you offer
And, of course, they see it al packaged consistently with your brand identity (logos, colors, etc) They can noer the question, ”Given the col ection of my deep perceptions of this co arethem in discussions to help me compared to other options?” In other words, in total, buyers now have the foundation to evaluate the extent of your likely value to them
VALUE PROPOSITION DEFINED
A value proposition is the col ection of reasons why a co with a firh a nulines to brand promise statements and corporate overviews to deep and detailed interaction with your intel ectual capital and people
When it co and substantiation, you should also note: As you move down the list of ways value propositions are delivered, the delivery vehicles increase substantialy in breadth and depth Your logo, nain to communicate your overal value proposition; but they often do so subtly, perhaps only ies that support how people benefit fro with you Core attributes of your coo, but they may not be readily apparent to the viewer What is i froing Your one-pager or corporate overvieil list what you do and for whoive et it done, how it has worked in the past, and how buyers can evaluate if it is right for them Your white papers, case studies, research, and speeches wil provide the deeper ing, the es must cascade consistently
While they are not es lend theo can be used to generate awareness Indeed, awareness o would be useless (with a few historical exceptions)
However os aren't typical y very powerful in generating interest for your services
Messages geared toward positioning your services serve as a foundation for generating interest in your services Yet, by the actual pipeline opportunities
Let's say 1,000 people at an industry conference attended by decision er in their kit of conferenceit they say, ”Good to know If I need this kind of help, I have someone I can cal ” In terh you have 1,000 one-pagers in the kit of conference ive a speech to the same audience and fol ow up afterward to see if people want to discuss the topic more deeply, and you can have dozens of new business opportunities in your pipeline
Foundation of Developing Your Value Proposition Messaging Now that you understand the ways to deliver value proposition ht subset of es to communicate it Before you can build your value proposition e do we need in order to build the strongest value proposition th of your value proposition is a three-legged stool, the legs being resonance, differentiation, and ability to substantiate (See Figure 93) Figure 93 Value Proposition Strength and Delivery Resonance Earlier in this chapter, we posed a number of questions that buyers ask themselves Two of those questions were, ”What is the business i this proble to solve this probleue that these two questions for decision As complex as many consultants and practitioners try to make these concepts, this is one of those very rare cases where it is actual y possible to boil everything down to a one-syl able word: need
A powerful but simple concept, need itself can further be broken down into two major components: performance resonance and emotional resonance
Performance resonance Performance resonance is a buyer's perception of the need to solve a particular problee a particular solution because of the i the probleht say, ”Last year, 100 employees e didn't want to leave left our hospital, costing us 100,000 in replacement expense and lost productivity per person In other words, 10 mil ion walked out the door last year” If that decision e from a firm that says, ”We have helped our clients in health care institutions reduce unwanted turnover by an average of 20 percent within one year, and we can do it for you,” she could see that for her that would equal a drop in unwanted turnover by 20 people, saving the company 2 mil ion
While they're closely related, don't confuse performance resonance with return on invest turnover by 20 percent and saving 2to investigate Whether she'l get a return on investy, and eood If it wil cost 15 s would seee by many businesspeople's standards, that's not always the case One decision maker, when presented with a way to save 10 mil ion by one of our clients, said, ”I see that you can save50 mil ion problems” What resonates with one buyer won't necessarily resonate with another
Emotional resonance Es toward a particular problem, a particular solution, or a particular coo than I prefer to count, I orking at a coo public Curious young er that I was, I asked the CFO of the co-five firm (at the time there were five) to handle the preparations for our public offering
He said to ot there, he walked rid he had created for the president and board of directors After he was done, he said, ”Clearly, this firm was the most qualified, best firuree with him more This firm was head and shoulders better for us Then he said, ”Close the door” (I did) ”Do you want to know the real reason I picked them?”
”It wasn't what you showed me?” I asked
”Nope I picked them becauseI liked them better” He went on, ”Three of the five had the experience, the people, and the resources to do a great job taking us public But I'm the one il have to ith these people for 18 hours a day for a year straight, and I simply had the best connection with the folks at the firm I chose”
It's been said that buyers buy with their hearts (emotion) and justify it with their heads (performance) This kind of state, not business buying While the contexts ht be different, it's just as true with business buyers that eet al ocations
Differentiation Few topics in servicesare more misunderstood than differentiation With differentiation, as with many topics treated in this book, the simple explanation is the best Differentiation is the couishi+ng characteristics of one thing when co and the perception of the availability of substitutes That's it
As we discuss in Chapter 13, much of the literature available about differentiationthat they need to tout aunique, that they should position themselves as opposite as possible to the other options available in the oes as far as suggesting that firms approach differentiation not fro, a term they coined to connote that fires as radical y different from the other available options (For more on how to think about differentiation for your fir Advice”) Ability to Substantiate You can deliver es to the market about the impact and the difference you can make for clients (resonance) and your differentiation But you won't get very far if the buyer doesn't believe you One of the reasons those inoften take flak froes are just puffery You need the market to believe what you say In another word: trust
You do that through substantiation
Buyers wil ask, when they read your claims of the value you can deliver (resonance) and your differentiation, ”Are they credible?”
Do you claim:Your work is research based? If so, where's the research and hoel is it done?