If you were in the business of selling fast food, what would be the single biggest factor that could drive massive success? We all know about product, price, promotion, position... and these are all important but what you want is a starving crowd. This is at the heart of an insight delivered by Robert Coorey at an event I was part of today. It is especially relevant for sellers because the biggest competitor we face today is buyer apathy or the status quo that often results in the delaying or abandoning a purchasing initiative.
Obviously you need to have a viable market and offer a product, service or solution that addresses a legitimate need but the X-factor in success is highly motivated buyers. Robert mentioned Blue Ocean Strategy. If you haven't read it, you need to and go apply it to your sales process and product innovation lifecycle. It has applications for commanding a united front with your sales and marketing strategy. It contains the tea leaves on how to outflank your competitors by opening up new greenfield opportunities and totally outshining the competition by doing something that's Monty Python meets Steve Jobs, "And now for something completely different..."
I got to thinking about the above graph as it relates to Cirque Du Soleil, YellowTail wine, Apple, Southwest airlines and many other strategic movers and shakers that maximized profit and market share seeming to arise out of nowhere and go straight to the top in a rapid period of time. What exactly was their Blue Ocean Strategy to optimize their value curve and unique value creation elements? I then related it to sales processes themselves and a great deal of the sameness in the strategy of today's incumbents and the disruptors who seek to challenge them, quite frankly, evidenced itself.
“Value innovation requires companies to orient the whole system toward achieving a leap in value for both buyers & themselves” W. Chan Kim, Blue Ocean Strategy
To drive growth effectively in 2016, we must think outside the box to create a passionate audience hungry for what we offer. An essential part of achieving this to differentiate ourselves by how we sell, not just with what we sell, and this demands that we start to attract and engage rather than interrupt and push.
Here is Robert Coorey's nine point checklist for being ready to 'feed a starving crowd' and accelerate your success . He uses this checklist to screen his own potential clients:
- You must already have market momentum with and be beyond the pioneering and education phase. Reference customers and success stories are essential.
- You have credibility in your market. People buy from those they like and trust so personal brand reputation is essential. [Here is how to create your personal brand].
- You have a marketing database with people who do not regard your outreach as spam. The best way to create a database is to provide high quality content and this is important because is enables you you create pipeline without having to pay for advertising.
- Social media commitment with a strong. The best platforms are LinkedIn for B2B and Facebook for B2C. Social platforms are the modern way to listen, research and engage.
- Have a market offering that leads to a higher price products. Selling low price or free versions of your product, service or solution just does not fund what is needed to drive long-term success.
- A fundamental understanding of selling and internet marketing. [I highly recommend the book, The New Rules of Marketing And PR by David Meerman Scott].
- An established market with consistent demand over a long period of time.
- The competition is not particularly technology savvy and has not yet modernized the way they attract audience and create 'buyer experience'. [Think about what Uber is doing to the taxi industry].
- The business can scale with technology
Robert Coorey is the best selling author of Feed A Starving Crowd and has been rated by Huffington Post as one of the most influential online marketers globally. If you valued this article, please hit the ‘like' and ‘share’ buttons below. This article was originally published in LinkedIn here where you can comment. Also follow the award winning LinkedIn blog here or visit Tony’s leadership blog at his keynote speaker website: www.TonyHughes.com.au.
Main Image: Flickr: Ahd Photography West Oak Lane Jazz Festival 2010