I found this very helpful post on the Small Business Trends blog on developing a “marketing kit.”  There are some very helpful tips here for B2B marketers who typically have to rely on a library of brochures, spec sheets and direct mail pieces to educate a prospective customer. (more…)

Leave it to John Jantsch, the author of the Duct Tape Marketing blog, to provide yet another great idea for those of you who need to make a big impression on a new business prospect.

John points out that with the new, low price of the iPod Shuffle, it makes a very appealing (and impressive) premium vehicle to carry your B2B pitch via podcast.

Read the whole post here.

The headline in this week’s edition of B2B Magazine proclaims the good news that marketing budgets for B2B marketers is going up in 2008.  The survey of 213 marketers found that the majority of those interviewed (over 50%) anticipated a budget increase in the 5-14% range over last year. 

That sounds great on the surface, but what a closer examination of the story will tell you is that the biggest parts of the budgets seeing increases are online marketing and event marketing/trade shows.

What’s this mean for agencies and trade pubs trying to ride the wave of increased budgets for 2008?

It means it “ain’t gonna happen” - not this year, anyway. (more…)

Can companies that specialize in selling to other businesses find legitimate opportunities related to cultural diversity and ethnic markets?

The question itself indicates a subtle ethnic bias that most white business people can’t see. But while white business owners may suffer from an ethnic blind spot, minority-owned businesses have more to do to bring attention the opportunities they represent.

First, for traditional B2B companies (usually owned and operated by whites), understanding the diversity of the American business culture as well as the consumer culture can yield a fresh perspective and new opportunities in a variety of areas:

Employment – Minority groups today account for 25% of the US population. That number will more than double over the next generation. The ethnic shift is likely to be even more pronounced among those people of employable age.Employers who recognize this trend and work to develop corporate cultures that are more open and accessible to people of various ethnicities will be positioned to review and select from a significantly larger talent pool of job applicants. An additional benefit to such an employer would be the positive “word of mouth” within various ethnic communities – resulting in a likely reduction in employee recruiting costs.

Client Relations – Just as it is likely most B2B companies’ own employment base will change over the next generation, it is fair to assume the employment profile of their clients’ will change over time as well. The ethnic/cultural background of your key client contacts may necessitate a change in your company’s approach to cultural diversity.

Growing and Start-Up Businesses – Today, ethnic businesses are growing faster and increasing spending more quickly than the national average for all businesses. Minority start-ups outnumber white start-ups by a ratio of nearly 2:1. Sales for minority businesses are growing at a dynamic rate of nearly 24% per year.

Healthcare and Related Markets – The health needs of some minority groups are more pronounced in some areas (e.g. Hispanics and the incidence of diabetes, African-Americans and the incidence of heart disease). While these tendencies have been identified by several drug and device manufacturers, there are several opportunities for companies who produce goods that support the lifestyle changes that go along with treatment. Food companies, financial service companies, technology companies, etc. can all benefit from getting to know and understand the needs of these markets in greater detail in order to stimulate more sales and product use.

Pull-Through Opportunities – Identifying cultural opportunities in the end-user market can create new business opportunities with existing customers.

For minority-owned businesses, there are a few significant challenges they need to overcome in order to break through the “checkmark” mentality so many white-owned businesses have when it comes to accommodating ethnic markets and minority-owned businesses.

Awareness – Opportunities in minority and ethnic markets need to be brought
forward and explained to companies that have traditionally operated in “the mainstream.” And with the mainstream, nothing succeeds like success. A coordinated push of positive examples and subsequent opportunities will get noticed by the more savvy entrepreneurs.Education – Many white business owners and managers are intimidated by cultures they don’t understand. The only way to overcome those fears is to spend the time required to educate and inform them.

Partnership – True partnership is a two-way street. Inter-racial business relationships need to start out slow, allowing the white partner to catch on and catch up. Both parties need to make their intentions clear and to put matters of difference on the table so they can be addressed. A clear understanding of the give and take of the business relationship will help make a stronger, working partnership when things finally hit their stride.

Finally, it’s up to all of us to recognize and celebrate the success stories. We all need to do what we can to commend businesses that find new ways to work together and benefit from the partnership. These stories will be of interest to the media and to the public because as the population continues to diversify (ethnically), the media will be searching for ways to entertain and inform that new public.

In the B2B segment, there is a distinct opportunity to lead consumer trends and benefit both strategically and economically as a result.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Advertising, B2B Marketing, Ethnic Advertising, Minority Marketing, Client Management, Leadership, Creative Thinking, Culture, Cultural Diversity

(c)2006, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about Brand Central Station, please visit our website.

Not all innovation is technology-driven – sometimes re-thinking how things are done can bring real value. And the best inspiration for finding that new line of thought is the customer (whether they are external or inside your own company).

Charlotte Sibley, with Shire Pharmaceuticals, uses customer reaction as a barometer of innovation inside her own company. “… if I get a lot of pushback from internal customers, I know I’m pushing the innovation envelope,” she says.

Blogger Dave Pollard provides a list of non-technological ways of looking for innovation (from his How To Save The World blog:

• How you design your core offerings (e.g. the Mercedes Smart Car’s unique and imaginative attributes)
• Product system: How you link and/or provide a platform for multiple products (e.g. the Microsoft integrated productivity suite)
• Core processes: How you create and add value to your offerings (e.g. Wal-Mart’s reinvention of retailing as shelf-space leasing)
• Enabling process: How you support the company’s core processes and workers (e.g. Starbucks’ premium wage and benefits packages to attract superior staff)
• Service: How you provide value to customers and consumers beyond and around your products (e.g. Singapore Airlines’ thoughtful and pampering extras)
• Delivery Channel: How you get your offerings to market (e.g. Martha Stewart’s multi-media ways of getting her ‘home’ stuff to your home)
• Brand: How you communicate your offerings (e.g. Absolut vodka’s “theme and variations’ advertising concept)
• Customer experience: How your customers feel when they interact with your company and its offerings (e.g. the Harley Davidson owners’ community)
• Networks and alliances: How you join forces with other companies for mutual benefit (e.g. Sara Lee sticking strictly to branding and outsourcing all manufacturing)
• Business model: How you make money (e.g. Dell’s pay-in-advance for a custom-made PC model).

If you’re interested in investigating the concept of customer-driven innovation further, you may want to check out this white paper by Howard Moskowitz, Ph.D.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Brand, Leadership, Client Management, Innovation, Creative Thinking

(c)2006, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about Brand Central Station, please visit our website.

You don’t have to spend a fortune on intense, consumer-oriented market research to be a success in the B2B marketing space. All you really need to do is set a manageable framework for research, collect the data, dedicate the time to putting everything into context and then act on your findings.

You’ll be surprised at your “return” on the investment.

Set the framework
The biggest problem companies run into when considering market research is related to organization. There are so many options available when it comes to collecting and analyzing data that marketing managers unfamiliar with research are quickly and easily overwhelmed.

Rather than looking at all of the options and their related costs, I suggest clients start on the other end of the project and identify the questions they have about their clients, markets or competitors and determine the value of knowing the answers. Be as specific as possible.

Once the scope of the research has been determined, clients need to decide how much of this they want to take on themselves and how much they want to delegate to an outside expert. The cost of an expert is relatively easy to determine (they’ll give you an estimate or proposal), but the cost of conducting research with in-house personnel is more difficult. You have to consider not only the actual costs incurred related to your in-house persons’ salary, benefits and overhead but you also need to consider the opportunities lost because of the in-house person’s commitment to the research project.

It’s surprising how, once an honest assessment of costs is done, an outside expert is preferred.

Whether it’s provided by an outside expert or determined by an in-house committee, a framework for the research needs to be determined. This means an action plan has to be set with clear objectives, detailed tactics, deadlines and budgets. Remember, every tactic has a cost associated with it – either in hard dollars or time required or both. Be sure to document this and continue whittling away at the scope of work until you feel comfortable the scope can be met given the cost and time required.

From that point forward, all that’s required is implementation.

Collect the data
This is usually the most expensive part of the process. Data collection can consist of everything from conducting focus groups in remote locations to distributing surveys by e-mail. Secondary research may require site visits or trips to research libraries. We do a lot of phone interviewing, finding the one-on-one interaction with people who fit in our clients’ target to be very helpful.

Data collection typically takes the most time. But if it’s done well (and usually conducted or supervised by the person responsible for the analysis and recommendations), the data collected can often provide additional insights that go far beyond the scope of work.

One thing to keep in mind (and it will help you save money): Data collected for previous/other research projects may hold some of the critical information you require. Make sure you have a complete understanding of what information is readily available from this and similar in-house sources.

Put it into context
Although data collection can be the most expensive part of the process, it’s the analysis (where data is turned into information) that adds the value. Conducting analysis in-house is tough, especially for small and mid-sized companies. Why is that? Because objectivity is paramount.

Research specialists can be retained on a freelance basis to evaluate data and provide insights. But beware, if you’re considering a specialist for this phase of the project, you need to make sure the specialist you select is involved in setting the framework for the data collection and after action. That way, you’ll be able to tap into the entire range of knowledge and expertise offered by the expert.

One of the things we do that helps put everything into context is we review our preliminary findings with media representatives we trust. Trust is meant in both senses: journalists we trust to have their finger on the pulse of the industry and journalists we trust to not blab our findings before we’re ready. (You can find more about partnering with the media in the Media Advisor blog.)

The last step in this analysis phase is to help tie the research and its findings to the day-to-day operations and long-term vision of the company/brand. These recommendations are intended to have a definitive impact on the company and its brand(s). And even if the client doesn’t want to act on all (or any) of the recommendations, they should (in the very least) trigger an informed debate that will help the company improve and the brand increase in value.

Act on your findings
The last, and most important, step in this whole process involves putting knowledge into action.

It’s not enough to just know what’s happening. By creating action plans that leverage that knowledge, a client is able to make informed decisions on business strategy, market development, customer management and a wide range of other issues that have a direct impact on the bottom line.

Action is important. Measurement of that action (and what results) is also important. The results of those actions can become the initial data required for another round of market research and business activity that fosters’ the clients’ agenda and business mission.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Branding, Market Research, Customer Relationships, Vendor Relationships, Employee Training, Sales Training, Informed Decision Making

(c)2006, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about Brand Central Station, please visit our website.

In the marketing profession, we often get an opportunity to see both ends of a business relationship in quick succession. Our negotiations with suppliers and vendors are often immediately turned into business opportunities presented to clients or new business prospects.

This is salesmanship, customer management and business process in its most linear form. It’s not that linear is bad, it’s just not very flexible or creative. Linear thinking in business today is time-tested and trusted. It’s safe and conventional.

The problem is, we live in an unconventional world and those businesses that aren’t creative run the risk of falling fast and hard.

So, how do you foster creativity in a business environment that may not be particularly creative? The answer lies in collaborative techniques designed to bring more people into the solution. With more people come more points of view, more ideas and eventually more value.

Collaboration can be a destructive thing, though. It often needs to break down conventional barriers to creativity. And, quite typically, the first thing to go are the “silos of responsibility” employers and managers often build around themselves.

Explained on mid-level manager in the financial services profession: “We are desperately trying to move away from silo’ed efforts,” in their quest for greater collaboration. The result of such an effort can be liberating – often resulting in a new or unique perspective on conventional business problems.

When the collaborative effort extends beyond the organization and involves clients and vendors, the impact can be felt beyond the immediate return on investment. Increased loyalty between parties – a direct result of sharing the process of discovery that characterizes collaboration – is known as the Hawthorne Effect.

Benefits can be measured on the balance sheet, as well. Improved financial stability resulting from stronger ties with customers and vendors give managers a solid footing for planning and growth. Economies of scale can result from purchases made against long-term order quantities. Sharing resources between parties can help lower production costs for both.

There are always new examples of customer collaborations announced in the media. If you have a particular case study or example you would like to share, I invite you to contact me and we’ll develop a case study to share on this blog.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Branding, Collaboration, Partnership, Hawthorne Effect, Customer Relationships, Vendor Relations, Leadership, Culture

(c)2006, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about Brand Central Station, please visit our website.

Do you know what your company’s mission statement says? Chances are, even if you do, many of your employees and most of your customers and vendors don’t … and don’t want to!

Why is this?

Because if your company is like most, your corporate mission statement isn’t all that different from anyone else’s. White out the product-specific stuff and the name of your company and your mission statement probably says something about commitments to quality, profitability and innovation. About half of the mission statements I read say something about “our people are our most important asset.” And another forty percent are sure to through in jargon that doesn’t really mean anything to people (e.g. synergies, strategies, paradigms, et al).

There isn’t anything wrong with having a stated commitment to quality, etc. That’s commendable. But why is it, after a management group has spent a while (sometimes days or weeks) squeezing a multi-paragraph statement down to a few sentences, that employees are under-whelmed and customers and vendors don’t really seem to care?

Why aren’t people excited?

The answer is relatively simple – most mission statements sound like a lot of hard work that will result in relatively little in terms of personal or professional gain. As my 14-year old is fond of saying when I give him a mission (like cleaning his room): “So what?”

As rude and self-serving as that may sound, there is a point to the question. People (whether they’re customers, employees or vendors) need a reason to commit to a mission. They need to know their agreement to do whatever it is you want them to do will result in something they want to have happen to them. In short, they need to “see” their own success first in order to be motivated to make the success a reality.

We call this process “visioning” – while not a particularly clever term, it does describe the process we use. When put into practice, clients are able to clearly and succinctly explain what they are trying to do with their business in three to five years. This answers the “So what?” question for most people and gives them an opportunity to create their own, personal vision of their success in the future.

Making sure the vision of the company is shared is the responsibility of the CEO and senior management team. But internalization of that vision is everybody’s job. In fact, the visioning process makes the development of a mission statement much easier:

“Live up to the promises we make and turn our vision of the future into a reality.”

Plentiful communications inside the enterprise helps reinforce the fundamental changes required to realize the future. As more and more people start to see the role they play in the company’s future, though, something remarkable happens. So remarkable, in fact, it’s actually measurable.

Internally, people begin to take advantage of opportunities to make the corporate vision a reality whenever and wherever they present themselves. This “strategic opportunism” can lead to productivity gains in the most unexpected places. Vendors, armed with the relevant parts of the corporate vision, start presenting proposals that fit within that framework – not only is it easier to sell to a client when you know what they’re trying to do, you have a steak in their continued success and prosperity.

“Strategic opportunism” can be found on the sales and customer support side, as well. Sales leads become easier to evaluate and targeted leads worked faster once ideal customer types are identified and the brand’s USP is clarified. With existing customers, lifetime values can be maximized according to the company’s plans for the future.

All of these are examples of companies making their own reality – turning their “vision” into success.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Strategic Planning, Corporate Vision, Brand, Brand Equity, Branding

I had a delightful lunch with an old client the other day. In fact, every time Juan and I get together for lunch it turns into a kind of “mutual admiration society” meeting. I guess that’s because either he’s smart enough to agree with everything I say or vice versa.

Juan’s consulting now - the great beyond for all of us who cooked ourselves to a crisp either working for “the man” or working for someone who works for him. Juan’s a smart, affable guy, though and he’s doing well, but he’s frustrated. “I just can’t seem to land clients who understand the difference between a strategy and a tactic,” he tells me.

I know what he means. I subscribe to several discussion groups and am constantly amazed how often the two terms are used interchangeably. It’s clear to me that someone out there, with as much credibility as me (which may, at times, not seem like much I realize), is providing definitions to these essential marketing terms that are diametrically opposed to the definitions I’ve used my entire career.

It’s no mistake that one of the greatest advantages Brand Central Station brings to its clients and partners is a common lexicon. I insist on it. A client in France and an agency in the US have to agree on a common terminology in order to work together - that seems obvious. But just as importantly, a client in Illinois has to be able to understand what their agency in Missouri is talking about when it comes to marketing objectives, goals, strategies and tactics.

So, now, for better or worse, here is a written explanation of what strategies and tactics are and - more importantly - why business owners and managers need to “think” strategically rather than tactically:

What is the difference between a strategic and tactical approach to business?
To understand the difference between strategic and tactical thinking, you have to understand the essential difference between strategies and tactics. Both are required to make your business a success – but, all too often, business owners and managers spend too much time on the smaller, tactical issues rather than on the larger, longer-range, strategic ones.

In short, they spend too much time working in their business and not enough time working on it.

In order to achieve any goal, you have to have a plan in place. That plan usually consists of one or more strategies – general directions or intentions that lead you to the goal. The actions you take to follow these directions or act upon these intentions are tactical by nature.

Imagine you have a very simple goal in mind – say; you want to travel from your home to New York for a vacation. There are a variety of strategies available to you: you could fly, you could travel by car, you could take a bus or a train. These are obvious strategies. Less obvious strategies are available as well: you could walk or hitchhike, you could package yourself up in a crate and go parcel post (don’t laugh, someone’s done this before).

Some strategies are inherently more risky than others (flying coach versus cargo, for example). But identifying the strategy is just half of the battle. Once you’ve selected your strategy, you actually have to do something. You see, a strategy helps you focus on the tactics that are best suited for that strategy. This process – referred to as planning – is one of the side benefits of thinking strategically. The clarity that comes from adopting a strategic plan can be tremendously empowering because you are able to compare available tactics against the strategy and determine very quickly which are appropriate and which are not.

For example, buying an airline ticket may be an appropriate tactic if you’re going to fly (or ship yourself) to New York. But building a crate is a tactic that only works for one strategy. No matter the price of nails and boards, you’re not likely to buy them if you’ve already landed on the strategy of traveling with other humans rather than the suitcases.

Now while our example was rather silly, I used it to make a point. Business owners and managers are constantly confronted by “tactical” solutions to their problems. Some are right, some aren’t. And even more are sort-of right/sort-of not right. It can be terribly confusing and horribly expensive.

It’s human nature to default to those tactics with which we feel most comfortable – and that means we doom ourselves to continue repeating what we know whether it’s worked for us in the past or not. You see, without a clear strategy for a business, the owner/manager has no standard for evaluating the relative significance of one tactic against another. The result is slow growth or, even worse, stagnation.

Why a business strategy can make all the difference in your future.
There’s a second reason why having a clear business strategy is key to your growth and prosperity: innovation.

Too many times, business owners feel like they are constantly responding to market forces that are beyond their control. A major reason for this is that these owners and managers are often managing on data collected in the past and spend a great deal of time trying to interpret this historical information that looses its relevance over time.

Businesses who adopt a strategic approach to their growth and development still track what they’ve done – but that information is only part of the data they evaluate when making forward-looking decisions. Strategies are based on research and analysis of market factors that help define customer needs, competitive supply levels and other market-making trends.

In the United States, growth of market share is increasingly dependent upon clear, value-driven business strategies. Businesses who are not thinking how to improve their customer relationships, open themselves to new markets or re-position their USP (unique selling proposition) in a relevant and compelling manner are doomed to stagnation, declining share and eventual failure.

You see, the total number of consumers in the US is still growing but at a significantly slower pace than it has over the past fifty years. That means businesses have to lure customers and clients away from competitors in order to continue growing. For those business owners and managers who are not fiercely guarding their existing client/customer relationships and aggressively going after new ones, this means they are under siege. Sales will decline. Margins will shrink. Profits will evaporate.

Having a well-defined business strategy will allow you to be more creative in how you approach prospective customers – maybe even open up entirely new markets never-before explored. Innovation in positioning, products and service can lead to significant breakthroughs and, more importantly, make you the only player in the field – if even for only a short time.

(c)2005, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about BCS, please visit our website.

This post is going to sound a bit self-promotional - for that, I apologize.

But I think it’s important business owners and managers seriously re-think the way they’ve been looking for marketing help all of these years. We conducted a poll last year and found that only one in nine businesses regularly used the services of a marketing firm like an ad agency or pr firm. The rest (nearly 90%) picked up the help they needed when they thought they needed it.

The admitted resources used to find this help were not very sophisticated: the Yellow Pages, referrals from friends, etc. And in the unlikely event a company was looking for a more “permanent” relationship, they would often turn to the same purchasing methodology they used for buying raw materials in order to collect information from prospective marketing service providers.

The RFP (Request for Proposal).

Now, I shouldn’t have to tell you how much agencies hate RFP’s. It’s not just the document; it’s what the document stands for that drives us crazy.

RFP’s, typically, ask a number of irrelevant questions with a smattering of intentionally intrusive questions mixed in for good measure. Why clients think they can ask for details concerning everything from executive compensation to old financial statements and tax returns is, quite frankly, beyond me. To compound those intensely personal intrusions with requests for reems of price quotes for printing and production projects for which no “real” specifications exist is nothing other than adding insult to injury.

Why do agencies (especially the privately held ones) get so huffy about these questions?
Because ad agencies and PR agencies are intensely personal business ventures. Criticism of how they are managed is taken as personal criticism of the managers. And, usually, the managers own part (or all) of the company.

It’s a strange dichotomy, but agency principals usually have every earthly possession tied up in their agency. They’re letting everything (and we mean everything) hang out there for the love of the business and on faith that their clients aren’t going to let them down. When someone comes along and starts to question the salaries, perks and benefits afforded an agency owner to help dull the throbbing pain in their gut associated with the risk, it cuts like a knife.

And to question in such a cavalier method as through a generally inane and thoughtless document as an RFP, the pain is all the greater. The mere thought that the RFP responses would be shared with a number of people on a committee - or, worse yet, screened by a support or clerical person - creates a real loathing of the document that results in the worst possible reaction on the part of the agency’s management:

They lie.

Questions are asked that don’t really deserve a response. So they don’t get a real response. RFP’s typically receive vague, meaningless answers that are sometimes so untruthful they’re funny. Besides malicious intent, there are some perfectly legitimate reasons for this:

1. Many agencies attempt to create “boilerplate” answers for most RFP’s in order to cut down on the extraordinary amount of time required to answer them;
2. Many agencies delegate the RFP to lower-level people who either don’t really know the answers or can’t get superiors to provide the insight required to answer questions correctly;
3. Many RFP questions are so poorly worded that they get the answers they deserve - whether those answers are what the client really needs to know (or not);
4. Several agencies are under the impression that not all RFP answers are actually read. As a result, not every RFP question is actually answered.

What clients need to do is find a better way to find the service providers they need. That’s where we come in (and this is where things get a bit promotional).

In the past month, we’ve been working with a number of clients to find everything from public relations and advertising agencies to marketing research specialists and audio production studios. The secret (we’ve found) is to work with the client to determine exactly what their requirements are and how they expect things to work out with the new service provider.

We then structure a rubric for performing a due diligence process on a number of qualified prospects. Much of the information we gather can be culled from sources like Agencyfinder.com or similar services specializing in research, production, printing, etc. (A side note: Business Partnering, Intl. - the parent company of Agencyfinder - is a BCS client.)

At no point is there an “RFP”. If we have questions we boil them down to no more than five and then ask for some correspondence from the prospective service provider to provide an explanation of their position, methodology, resources or credentials. We also call and check on references, speaking directly to people who have worked with the service provider.

Once the preliminary research is completed, we call and talk to each candidate company on our client’s behalf to confirm our findings. Following a credentials review, a short list of prospects is presented to the client for final evaluation and selection.

The whole process is direct, professional and - believe it or not - faster than the “traditional” method involving RFP’s. And, as a side benefit, both client and service provider come into the relationship enthused, informed and ready to do business.

It’s a gratifying experience. That’s why plan on continuing to help clients and service providers make connections.

(c)2005, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about BCS, please visit our website.

In this recent article in B2B Magazine (“Weak dollar lifts some firms”), writer Sean Callahan investigates some of the factors helping to drive foreign sales for some smaller US manufacturers. While the weak US dollar (versus the euro and British pound) is certainly one factor, it’s not the only factor driving sales volume.

As it turns out, ease of communication is a key factor in developing a preference for US-made goods versus other foreign sources of products for EU-based customers. Companies are finding an advantage in diverting resources into communications in order to make their products features and benefits more apparent in various European markets.

According to Callahan’s story, the Internet, in particular, has created favorable conditions for US-based manufacturers. E-mail and simplified communications that when combined with the American’s “sense of urgency” helps speed transactions and product delivery.

“It’s not necessarily the weak dollar [that attracts business from Euorpe];” writes Callahan in an interview with Bill Gilber, president of Serville, NJ-based Branch Environmental. “In part, it’s the Internet, because it’s much easier to reach us.”

The Winning Formula
So, what seems to be important in order for US manufacturers to compete effectively in Europe and other parts of the world? Price alone is not that important. In fact, as China continues to grow and its manufacturing capacity continues to increase, the US will have problems competing with China at almost any price.

Production capabilities, quality and capacity are important factors. But where those factories are located and who staffs and runs them will vary from US manufacturer to manufacturer. Heavy manufacturers, like Deere or GM or Caterpillar will probably continue to find and locate plants in Europe to produce product for sale into the market. Lighter manufacturing companies may decide to maintain a domestic production operation in the US and ship to markets that express a demand. Either method can work, but demand must be created and maintained.

And in order to create and maintain that demand, US companies must learn how to market their product in a way that’s slightly different from how it’s done in the USA. Marketing for any product, especially B2B products, can’t be done on an international basis by merely setting up distributors or indepedent sales representatives.

American marketers must consider making a long-term investment into the markets that are most appropriate for them. Whether that investment is in advertising, public relations, events, trade show support, etc., those decisions remain the purvue of the client. But three general rules applly in this situation:

1. Take your time. One of the early lessons taught by US-based marketers who attempted to establish their brands elsewhere is that Americans don’t have a lot of patience. In some countries, they’ll deliberately avoid buying US-made products for as many as five years to make sure the American company’s management has a true interest in their country.

2. Remember to “tell” before you “sell”. To us, your product’s benefits might be obvious. But in places like Europe and Japan, consensus is vitally important so you must win over a number of people on the client side, first, before you even ask for the sale. This is especially difficult for US-based companies who are competing in an RFP-based, bidding system. A native counsellor is highly recommended in these situations to give the US company a clear view of where they stand in the cutlural understanding.

3. Be aware of cultural filters. Cultural filters for both parties in a negotiation (or sales pitch) can completely derail a conversation and make working together an near impossibility. Spending time with a knowledgable marketing advisor in the market would be tremendously helpful in identifying and addressing the various cultural biases that are likely to cause problems for a US manufacturer.

Of course, this would be the best opportunity to talk about our international network of business partners and our free search and selection services - but I won’t do more than that. If you want to know more, just follow the links.

Good luck to you all.

Business marketers are constantly under pressure to find ways to do more with less. That’s not just a feeling or an “educated guess.” It’s a documented fact.

The squeeze is coming from all directions. Small, nimble, niche players are finding ways to nibble away at profitable business segments while large, multi-national competitors are constantly trying to comoditize products in order to take advantage of their manufacturing scale. On the other hand, many businesses are operating on short purse strings that could significantly change their prospects for the future if inflation and/or interest rates don’t remain in check.

Somehow, all of this pressure seems to land in the marketing department first.

Maybe a “soft” area like marketing seems to be ready for belt tightening every year because many marketing managers are unable to succinctly explain their spending plans or justify their past purchases through some kind of ROI demonstration. We’re not sure. But we do know that many ad agencies and PR firms do not do their clients any favors with what is usually perceived as loose operating standards, a general lack of process and in the worst cases, a complete inability to manage projects according to approved budgets.

There are options. Clients don’t have to suffer through this alone. In many cases, agency principals just need the encouragement to bite the bullet and champion some internal change. In many cases, an agency president or managing director may be reluctant to create more internal structure because of the internal resistance that is assumed. In reality, once people inside the agency realize the client needs the change in order to achieve greater satisfaction with the agency’s performance, everyone from creatives to account management are usually happy to accommodate.

It seems job security is a concept that hasn’t been lost on agency folks.

On the other hand, many business marketing managers don’t feel comfortable making management suggestions to their agencies. A primary reason for this may be the relative seniority of the different players involved - a junior level client would certainly feel out of place making management recommendations to an older, more experienced agency principal. There are options, however:

Suggest the agency contact their trade association to investigate best practices in areas where the agency is not performing acceptably. Whether it’s billing practices, brainstorming, media relations measurement, etc. - trade associations from the AAAA’s to the Council for Public Relations can provide useful information to member firms.

If your service provider is not a member of a national trade association, they may try purchasing related research from services like Second Wind or others. These services conduct annual research studies into agency operations and best practices.

Sometimes agencies can’t or won’t change on their own. In those cases, business marketers find it helpful to engage an outside consultant to conduct a performance evaluation and help develop a program to improve the operating relationship between client and agency. Brand Central Station provides this kind of service for clients with prices starting at $7,500. If you’re interested in learning more, let us know.

Finally, there are times when marketers find it necessary to change their service provider. It’s important to carefully evaluate your needs and expectations first - and that is best done under the review of an independent consultant. An experienced search consultant will help the marketer develop a clear set of criteria for the evaluation of prospective agencies and will accompany the marketer when they tour qualified agencies and conduct meetings to discuss critical performance issues.

The search process used by Brand Central Station may prove useful in understanding this process.

(c)2005, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about BCS, please visit our website.

I can’t tell you how many B2B clients have told me that branding is a waste of their money. That comment is almost always followed in the next breath by the phrase “warm and fuzzy”.

Well, if this is your idea of branding your business - you’re right and wrong.

You’re right, doing a soft, image spot (or ad or brochure or whatever) probably isn’t the best use of funds for a business who sells to other businesses. But if you think that’s all there is to branding, you’re flat out wrong.

In fact, the most powerful tool to use to build your brand comes in to the office every day and spends most of his or her time talking to customers. Sales people often hold the key to successfully branding a B2B enterprise.

Brands are built in one way - by making promises (setting expectations) and by keeping promises (meeting expectations). If you’re good to your word, you build your reputation and that’s good for business. And in the B2B enterprise, no one is more important at both making and keeping promises than the sales person.

That’s why I’m providing a summary of seven key marketing strategies presented by Rob Engelman and tailoring those strategies to the individual sales person. These strategies take the basic marketing practices we encourage businesses to use on a corporate level and re-packages them on a more personal level.

1. Focus your pitch. Engelman encourages suggests creating a profile of your ideal customer. We suggest taking it one step further. Try to sell only to those customers who are inclined to buy from you. Our friend, Jacques Werth (the author of High Probability Selling), reminds us that the selling process gets much easier if you weed out the folks who don’t want to buy from you in the first place. Hard to believe? Check out the book.

2. Feel your customers “pain”. With all apologies to Bill Clinton, salespeople need to be tuned in to what drives their customers crazy. This requires active listening and an objective point of view. It’s a learned skill and once mastered, can be invaluable.

3. Define your personal value proposition and relate it back to the corporate brand. This is key. Salespeople have to make a great impression - talking to customers who are inclined to buy and empathizing with them will help make the great impression a salesperson needs to get close to the customer. But once close, the salesperson has to transfer the chemistry of their relationship to the company they represent. The best way to do this is to “become” the corporate brand by tying those things the customer likes about the salesperson back to the business.

4. Turn clients into your advocates. Nothing tells your story better than a satisfied client giving a referral that wasn’t coerced. Case studies are great (I use them frequently in my line of work), but actual referrals from clients are even better. There are a number of ways to turn clients into advocates.

5. Build high-power allies. It’s all about the network, baby. Salespeople should be careful not to concentrate their networking efforts inside one industry. Sometimes the most valuable pieces of information, advice and new business come from network members who exist outside the list of “usual suspects.”

6. Become a celebrated expert. We tell businesses they need to create a well-defined position in their market in order to succeed. The same is true for salespeople - especially senior-level account reps and sales managers. Well known, personal reputations can provide leverage in a negotiation or help settle disputes.

7. Use direct marketing practices to your advantage. Communicating with prospects and customers on a regular basis is key to achieving top-of-mind awareness and establishing credibility with the people who matter most to your success.

By using these well-established branding and marketing techniques - this time on an interpersonal level - will help salespeople make a great impression and build a relationship based on trust and performance.

Good luck.

Martha Stewart was not the first one to do this - but she’s certainly been successful. Why not capitalize on the reputation of a well-known CEO to create a high-level communications channel with the people who matter most to your success?

PR Guru, Jack O’Dwyer has been doing it for years. The old newspaper men (Hearst, McCormick and the rest) became so synonymous with their publications that you couldn’t extract one from the other.

But what about when you get beyond people who “live” in the business in media and start to leverage a CEO’s reputation built in other industries like healthcare, technology, logistics, etc.? It may not be as natural, but it might work.

The thing to remember, of course, is that media CEO’s gravitate towards this decision because writing and communicating is what they do. They understand it and they’re not as intimidated by it. CEO’s from other disciplines may feel less at ease with the idea of putting themselves out there in a weekly column or on a masthead or cover.

All of this plays into a larger discussion of the role of the CEO in developing a clear sense of the brand in both the public sense (to customers, peers and other business partners) and the private sense (to employees, shareholders, etc.). In fact, the CEO plays a vital role in how a company’s brand is understood and valued.

In a study conducted in 2001 by Burson-Marsteller, it was shown that 48% of the reputation enjoyed by a company is the direct result of the CEO’s leadership and management of the enterprise. Maybe even more notable is the fact that nearly all investors look at the behaviors of the CEO as a determining factor in whether they invest in the opportunity or not.

But what does all this really mean to a small or mid-sized company that, in all likelihood, will never go public? Why should the CEO view his job as the key champion for the brand?

In a word: Leadership.

As reported in the Burson study, people expect certain things from their CEO. Most importantly, they want CEO’s who are extremely credible and operate at a high ethical level. These CEO’s, if they pass muster, are expected to operate and communicate a clear vision of their company.

Knowing where the company is going and the ethically correct path to get it there is essential when it comes to establishing brand credibility for the CEO, no matter the size or nature of the enterprise. For smaller businesses, that means the following:

1) Make sure the CEO understands what it means to be in the public spotlight. Surely not every B2B enterprise is going to immediately vault it’s CEO onto the front page of the industry trade media - but for many corporate CEO’s even getting their picture or name into the local paper on a regular basis takes some getting used to.

2) CEO’s need to find one or two trusted advisors who are anything but “yes men”. These should be folks who will provide honest, objective counsel when it comes to presenting a position to the public or dealing with difficult situations honestly and transparently. Sometimes this advice is NOT what the CEO wants to hear - but he (or she) needs to hear it, swallow the bitter pill and move on.

3) CEO’s have to have a clear idea of where they’re taking their company. Hey, if you’ve got the keys and you’re sitting in the driver’s seat, we expect you to know where we’re all going. Too many CEO’s have a “feeling” or a “hunch” but are unable to explain their vision for the future clearly and succinctly. It takes coaching and practice - but you’ve gotta do it.

4) No matter the size of the company, remember that the CEO’s job is to work on the business rather than in it. If your CEO was a great salesman, that’s terrific. But he can’t stay exclusively in sales any longer. As a CEO, you have to lead the whole company, not just the parts you feel comfortable leading.

Address these issues and you’ll go a long way to creating the CEO as a beacon for your brand and a vital part of what makes your brand special to customers, business partners and everyone else who matters to your success.

Good luck.

Welcome to BtoBOnline.com

I was in Las Vegas last week on a vacation with my wife.

I say that not to brag but just as a point of reference. You see, we were sitting at breakfast minding my own business when I couldn’t help but overhear the three businessmen sitting next to me chattering away. One was an owner or manager (I’m not sure which) for a company that manufactures sunglasses. He was being sold to by two guys representing a plastics coating company.

There they were, sitting at a breakfast table in a restaurant in a resort, talking business - and it dawned on me: “There’s a reason why these guys are sitting here among the palm trees and gourmet coffee talking business rather than back at the office with the Styrofoam cups and generic blend.”

It may seem obvious, but if you want to make a customer feel special, you treat them a certain way. Duh. We’ve all done that, whether it’s a steak dinner or a round of golf at a nice course. But why?

Because most of us have a set of common reference points as to what is nice and what is tacky - set, in large part, by the opinion leaders in the media. Madison Avenue (meaning the ad industry) has helped lead this image-making process for years. And whether we like to admit it or not, it has an effect on even the hard-working B2B marketing sector which normally eschews glitz and glamour and all-things consumer-related for pictures of machinery, bulleted copy and headlines that often make unsubstantiated claims of “excellence” or “quality.”

In a hamburger or luxury car, we might intuitively know what makes one “quality” and the other “not-so-quality” - but in a metal press, elevator, drain cleaner or commodity, that standard starts to get a little more difficult to define. Especially in bullet points.

So, what’s the point?

The point is that even if your ads, website and collateral material is as good - or better - than your direct competition, that’s not the only group of images (or brands) you’re competing with. We all have a consumer-oriented quality standard that has to be met in order for our claims to be considered reliable and reasonable.

Ask yourself if your business is presenting itself in a way that would stack up respectably against leading brands like Pepsi, Nike or Cadillac. For some folks who deal in both B2B and consumer arenas (John Deere comes to mind), the decision is obvious.

So what are some simple - and relatively cost-effective - things your business can do to make sure it presents a competitive image?

1) Make sure your visuals are high quality. This means you should make sure your pictures are in focus and color correct. Hiring a professional photographer who understands how to use light can make a significant difference, but even if you end up taking your pictures yourself that doesn’t mean you should be satisfied with blurry or under-exposed images to tell your story.

2) Tell your story in complete sentences and save the bullets for the reinforcements. In fact, when we write B2B copy, we start with the bulleted points (after all, those should be the most important, right?) and then write the copy from there. But when we put together the layout of a brochure or ad, we lead with the complete sentances and save the bulleted points to use as either graphics inside an article or for the end in a specifications section.

3) Don’t mess around with your logo. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen companies change their logo color to match their ad, squeeze their logo into a corner or stretch their logo to fill some space. Arggggh! If you’re that careless with your logo, what do you think a prospective customer thinks you might do with his order? Be consistent!

4) Always include your contact information - even if it’s just an e-mail address. As a B2B marketer, you have a distinct disadvantage versus larger consumer brands … your customer might not know where to find you. So you have to tell him. At the very least, you need to include an e-mail address but real life addresses; phone numbers and website addresses are always preferred in addition to the e-mail. And one other thing about that web and e-mail address - make sure it’s not a generic one (e.g. aol.com, hotmail.com, etc.) - you’ve got to appear serious and there isn’t much of an excuse anymore for not having your own domain name.

5) Keep your website information up-to-date. Nothing says “We don’t care about our business or yours” faster than completely out of date information on the company website. If you have a press section, make sure you have something on there that is no more than four weeks old. And, by all means, make sure your copyright notice is current in the footer of your website. I remember calling a company once who had an old copyright notice in the footer. I asked to speak to the president about updating his website and was told he had passed away … six months earlier. D’oah.

6) If you use on-hold messaging or music, make sure it’s relevant to the season. Ever go on hold and hear a promotion that’s already passed its deadline or suffer through Christmas music in June? It’s happened to me. Lapses like this tell customers you’re behind the times.

It’s just a half-dozen suggestions, but if you follow them, you’ll be able to hold your own against your competition.

Good luck.

(c)2004, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. To learn more about BCS, please visit our website.