You might want to look at the point in your launch cycle in which your company actually asks customers their opinion. For example, a few years ago, BusinessWeek cited Xerox as typically developing products fully and then asking customers what they thought. Xerox has since refocused on customers from the onset in their product development timeline. Stephen Hoover, vice-president of Xerox’s research and development hub commented, “The team had had a certain idea of what customers wanted. Going out and actually talking to them really changed that.”
Carefully crafted messages alone won’t sell your product or service. You must target your message for your best audience and via the most effective venues. While doing this you must continuously refine your position against relevant competitors in the marketplace.
So much of what’s out there today is old thinking. Not old marketing or old sales thinking. But rather, the “silo” approach which separates these functions as if they existed independent of one another. The fact is that they are as dependent on one another as nutrition and exercise are for improving someone’s overall health. Except in a company looking to achieve its revenue and market share goals, the overall health is the ability to impact a specific market.
Great ideas would still fail to attract an audience – money and energy wasted.
Not only money and energy wasted – but also an old way of doing things. What else needed to change? For over 50 years, companies involved in complex or big-ticket sales have dichotomized “developing the message” and “delivering the message”. Even companies that derive the majority of their revenue from their direct sales channel rarely ask their sales teams, “What’s happening out there?” – relying instead on traditional market research and industry experts. Is this a wrong practice? Marketing experts are not typically sales professionals and the converse is usually true. That wasn’t the issue nagging at me. What was “off” was this: why not take advantage of the intense customer-facing resource that is your direct sales force for real-time market intelligence?
I came home to New York City, after several days at our corporate headquarters. It was late on a weeknight in April 2000. Excited as I entered my house, I woke up my wife, and sat her down. “Honey – we’re worth fifteen million dollars!”
Both Sales and Marketing have precious knowledge that becomes even more valuable when it is exchanged—and costly when the exchange of information doesn’t take place…
Just like everyone else, I held my breath. Would the economic bailout bill pass through congress?
Wherever you are on the political spectrum, and however you think this immense challenge should be addressed, September 29,2008 was a momentous day. The Dow took its 17th largest dip ever (777 points), and world markets soon followed.
