Terms
The Five Unbreakable Rules for Creating Demand - Know and understand your customer better than they know and understand themselves.
- Focus on the results your customers want and identify the roadblocks and barriers that they have not fully indentified or don't fully understand that you can help them address.
- Educate them on their problems by focusing on results and creating value in your selling and marketing processes.
- Stop telling them what you do and start Building The Bridge.
- Monetize the Value of your solutions/offerings.
Best Few™ Clients or Best Few™ Markets The concept of Best Few™ clients is based on what is commonly known as the 80/20 rule. Simply put, the 80/20 rule says that 80% of your revenue (or profits) typically comes from 20% of your clients. This rule, while typically true, is not conducive to creating raving fans in the wisdom age. The 20% of a business' client base that produces 80% of their revenue/profits typically have several benefits in addition to volume. These may include: - They are more enjoyable to work with.
- They value what you do more.
- They give you more referrals.
- They take disproportionately less time to service.
- They give you (or your company) energy every time you deal with them.
- They follow you advice more closely than others.
A Best Few™ client is one that fits all of these criteria. We have found that the more you customize your message and your service delivery model to your Best Few clients, the faster you will grow.
Demand Fulfillment
The industrial-aged based concept whereby companies determine what it is that customers want and then aim to provide it to them. This approach requires that customers understand what it is that they want. The focus is on competing, and beating the competition. Long-term, this leads to compressed margins, increasing sales, people costs and significant commoditization.
Demand Creation
A different approach to growth. The focus is on providing leadership to customers and enabling them to realize that they need something they didn’t know they needed. The focus is on market creation, uniqueness and making a compelling promise. Requires a maniacal focus on key customer groups. Long-term, this leads to expanding margins, decreasing sales costs and building customer communities.
Commodity
Any offering that competes with perceived alternatives.
Commoditization
The underlying process whereby customers systematically eliminate everything that we believe makes our company special or different, reducing our company and offerings to their lowest common denominator. This is typically, but not always, price and results in compressed margins.
Go-to-Market (Business Development)
Everything a company does to find, get and/or keep a good profitable client. There are six critical factors to an effective go-to-market or business development effort. They are: - Strategy
- Messaging/Positioning
- Lead Generation
- Selling
- Client Experience
- Talent
Fundamental Value Buyer vs. Total Value Buyer The description below comes from the article Avoiding The Commoditization Trap, Part 2: Align Your Sales Model to Your Customers Value Segment. If you have not read this article, we highly encourage you to do so. Fundamental Value Buyer: focuses exclusively on the product/service. Judging the commodity exclusively. Total Value Buyer: focus on the product/service, and areas of value beyond the product/service.
No Man's Land
The condition where a company is too big too be small and too small to be big. This condition is often referred to as "The Bermuda Triangle" of business - where otherwise successful, fast growth businesses fall of the rails and stall or fail.
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