What Does “Reaching the Next Level” Mean to You?

 

Is It Important for Your Company to Advance to its Next Logical Level?

Companies that only prosper when their economy is on an uptick will struggle when their industry matures or declines.  Successful business leaders know that what got them to where they are today won’t get them to a higher level.  They believe that they must continually develop key aspect(s) of their business in order to thrive.

You may be granted a temporary visit to the next level, but unless you hire and/or train the right people and invest in processes that foster growth, efficiency and consistency, you will most likely slip back to the prior level.  Staying power requires a valid growth strategy and a strong desire to prevent slippage.

Quantum Physics Concepts Can Guide Your Business Leap

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By John Bernardi

 

Target Marketing Will Make You More Effective

 Many CEOs think that their company does well at target marketing.  Although sorting customers by industry, geography, size and channel is a sales process prerequisite, this isn’t target marketing. Awareness of those who buy from you is only a step towards understanding the niches you serve even better than the products and services that you deliver.

Target Marketing Tips

Target marketing guides the design of the right products and services along with the optimal pricing strategy and distribution channels.  It sets the stage for developing compelling content and messages that are delivered via the target audience’s preferred communication channels.

Carefully choose a target market only after fully understanding it and if your company has what it takes to capture mindshare.  Then, design a targeting strategy [product, pricing, branding and channels of distribution and information].

Narrowcast over time to define other niches that are distinctly different from each other and for which you are well-suited to serve.  Build unique profiles for each segment including economic drivers, what they do for their customers, how they make buying decisions, their response mode [growth, trouble, even keel, euphoric] and opportunities and threats that they face.  Give each profile a name suited to its traits.  It is a bonus if you create personas of key decision makers and influencers within each target market.

As you add more niches, decide if you need to adjust your targeting strategy:

• Differentiated - separate targeting strategy for each segment
• Undifferentiated – one targeting strategy across multiple segments
• Concentrated - one targeting strategy for one broadly defined target market

Assign market manager accountabilities for overseeing target market portfolios.  Train your customer-facing teams to be competent in each target segment and for their antenna to be continually tuned to learning, networking and participating in segment related activities.

Although challenging, designing and implementing an effective target marketing strategy will make it easier to influence your target audience and to participate the right deals with fewer surprises.

By John Bernardi

Puffery Will Derail Your Brand

Self-Promotional Content Turns Off an Audience

The content that we see and hear about a company and its products and services is often an unproven litany of self-testimonials and competitor comparisons.  Anyone can say "we're the leader in the field ..." or “we deliver the highest customer satisfaction”.  These image positioning statements are separate from actual customer experiences and will disable a branding strategy.

Conversely, character expression builds a strong brand identity that is earned through consistent small steps that produce authentic experiences and valid expectations.

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By John Bernardi

I Am Not My Target Market

How Well Do You Understand Your B2B Buyers?

Are Your Messages Aimed at You or your Target Market?

When my clients and I discuss ideas for marketing programs, campaigns and messaging, they often say “I don’t think I would go for that”, or “that doesn’t sound appealing to me”, or “if I were the buyer, this is what I’d want”.

Do you see a problem here?  Is it possible that buyers might want what doesn’t appeal to you or that they don’t love what you love?  Are your decisions based on your personal perceptions rather than the reality of your target audience?  If so, you won’t achieve your goals relative to the product/service that you've designed, the campaign you've launched, the channels you’ve selected, or the price points you've set.

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By John Bernardi

Triggered Marketing for B2B Companies

Triggers Guide Timely and Proper Reactions to Situations

Wouldn’t it be beneficial if you had an automated process that fosters consistent reactions to changes in status for a target market, account, prospect, contact, sales opportunity or campaign?

Hopefully you can envision how you can tailor this concept to your business.  Benefits include reducing account churn, improving closed-won rates, generating referrals, and optimizing lead generation and nurturing to sales-ready status.

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 By John Bernardi

Focus on Important Things During Challenging Economies

Wishing Is the Difference Between Urgent and Important

During challenge economies we can make the smart choice and carve out quality time to spend on our wishes.  With fewer urgencies we can focus on important things.  If you plan correctly, the amount of urgency will have been reduced after the improvements that you make.

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By John Bernardi

Happiness and Effectiveness are Partners

I wonder how much more happily effective I’d have been had I come upon this excerpt from Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamozov” when I was a very young man.

"Let us agree that we shall never forget one another, and whatever happens, remember how good it felt when we were all here together, united by a good and decent feeling which made us better people, better probably than we would otherwise have been."

It would have eased the pressure to succeed on my own and to appreciate the many good things I had going for me including the companies for whom I worked, my fellow employees, the customers I served and the partners who helped me to make it happen.

By John Bernardi