You are what the market says you are

In yesterday’s blog we mentioned that the market will categorize your business to suit it's own perceptions of what you do. You have little or no choice in the matter.

‘No way, we are totally different, unique. There is no one like us. We’re in a category of our own,’ you cry indignantly and we can understand why. But….

…unfortunately its true - the market decides not you.

There are a number of reasons for this, but for the purposes of this blog entry, we’ll just cover the one that our experience shows is the most important.

First and foremost – markets have a habit of categorizing things to make it easy to find, compare and buy what it classes as similar products. If they didn’t can you imagine how many unique categories vendors would invent to make their products special. Just think about how difficult it would be to buy something as simple as a packet of clothes washing powder, or is it liquid, or tabs, or liquitabs or whatever comes next.

See what I mean and that’s only for one tiny category.

Now for the kicker. The washing powder marketers have gone to all that effort to invent a new product category so their products are different, shiny and exciting. So what do the supermarkets do? They stack them all in the same aisle as the traditional washing powder.

Why, because that is where the washing powders and detergents all belong and where we expect them all to be, no matter how much the manufacturers and their marketing teams might complain.

If they were in a different aisle you would have to go and look for it. Have you got the time for that and can you be bothered? Me neither.

So what has this to do with Triple X or your products? Well we cover this in the book, which is just about ready to publish, but it boils down to making your products easy to find, compare and choose for your customers. 

If you don't the chances are you won't make the sales you want.

Of course you could completely ignore all of this and go down the ‘educate the market’ road but you’ll probably need some pretty deep pockets for that.

By Tim Sandford

All Lawyers are the Same

All lawyers are the same.

Not true - or at least I hope not. However the statement illustrates an important point that we were working through at the end of last week for Triple X

We know what the market wants to buy and Triple X is making some early sales with little or no marketing, which is very encouraging. However there are alternative offerings in the market that their target market believes compete with the Triple X proposition. (We’ll cover the challenge of categorization in a different entry tomorrow, but it is something you need to know about). We expected this and as a result we have worked with Triple X to identify its true unique – that thing that sets it apart from its competitors.

The reason we make the statement about all lawyers being the same is that part of the process of developing a unique proposition, is being able to demonstrate something that your market values and is unique to your offering.  

Here’s what we mean. Speak to a lawyer and ask him or her what makes their firm so special and they’ll probably say something like, “We have the best lawyers.”  If they all say it, then it certainly can’t be unique and because it’s virtually impossible to prove, its probably not something the market will value or respect.

This is not a trivial thing. it is a key part of what helps you stand out and win business, so we would suggest this is an exercise you should not skimp on.

For Triple X it is measurable return. No other company in its industry can demonstrate the same level of return when helping its customers address a very costly issue in the industry. What is even better is that Triple X’s customers recognise this and value it.

Even better still, it can be defended and developed over time to increase the return its customers get.

So what is your unique? What is it that makes your business special and most importantly do your customers understand it and value it?

By Tim Sandford

Day 1 and First Principles

Hi and we are on day one of getting the company I mentioned in yesterday’s blog to market and selling.  For the purposes of this very candid set of blogs, we are going to call it Triple X.

We hope this will let you see the Backwards Business process in action and how to apply it so that it could help your business achieve its sales goals.

Today as we always do when we are starting the communications stage of a programme, was spent going through all our research, the early sales and the other insight we have gathered on the market to make sure we have fully understood everything and are offering products and services the market wants and will buy.

This is first principle stuff in Backwards Business as the diagram below shows.

For the last 2 months we have been working closely with the Triple X’s market to define exactly what is required for them to move to the new way of doing business. In reality it is pretty simple and down to one word – more.

For this particular market the trigger is more:

• More Choice for buyers from the supplier base
• More opportunities for vendors
• More confidence in suppliers
• More business being done between buyers and suppliers

Now the reason this is not a particularly easy programme is that the products and services offered by triple X are disruptive and mean the market adopting new habits.

There is plenty of evidence that this is welcome, but it is a disruption and addresses some areas of operation that are historically inefficient and more expensive than they need to be.

So the point of today’s blog is this. We know there is a market and purchases are being made, but we need position the products as an additional benefit as opposed to the solution to the problem. Semantics?

We would like to suggest not and here are a couple of examples to let you see what we mean:

• In an industry where vendors traditionally find generating demand for their products difficult, a contract with Triple X puts your products directly in front of your target buyers to generate the demand you need to win business

• A contract with Triple X puts your products directly in front of your target buyers to generate the demand you need to win business.  

Both say exactly the same thing. However the first one is dominated by the opening statement, which highlights a problem and even with the strong positive outcome, never quite feels positive. 

The examples are pretty rough, but we hope you get the point that even when you are solving an acknowledged problem, our experience is that staying on the positive and focusing on the desired outcome is the most successful way of generating business, which is really the point of commercialising a new business.

By Tim Sandford

A look under the hood

We are doing some work on quite a complex and challenging proposition for a client that covers an emerging market. In this particular market my client’s product is an evolution of what has been available to the market.

This always making getting the market for a product started more challenging because it means persuading a market to evolve or change to adopt something new. This is something markets often resist and we’ll cover that over the next few weeks here and on the website.

However the main reason for this blog entry is that we have decided that this is the perfect opportunity to share the whole Backwards Business process and how we take a customer through it in order to succeed and make the sales they are targeting.

So, starting tomorrow, we’ll be posting our notes and findings on the programme as it develops so that you can get a flavor for how Backwards Business works.

See you tomorrow

The team

Hi there and welcome to the place on the web where we get to talk about those business issues and ideas that don't really fit on the Backwards Business programme site.

As always our focus will be on discussing ideas that are designed to help you build products and businesses that your target customers understand, value and buy. That was you should survive and then thrive regardless of the economic conditions.

For around a quarter of a century the principal of the Marketing Engine, has been working with companies of all sizes and in a wide range of industries to help them increase their sales and profits. In that time one single and completely unbreakable truth has stood unchallenged and displayed below.

Companies that succeed listen to, understand and commit fully to their markets developing products and services that their markets buy. 

"This all seems terribly obvious," you say and we would agree. So why is it then that less than 30 percent of new businesses and products are surviving to their 3rd year? 

Even in these tough times, if the average new business was started on the back of real market knowledge and understanding you would still expect at least half to succeed.

If you are really interested in building the skills you need to 'think market' the Backwards Business programme is a good place to start. If you are interested in just understanding some of the things we notice in markets and what we think it means for companies then this is the space we'll use to discuss those topics.

By Tim Sandford