Is There a Role for Golden Spike Hunting in Your Company?

Golden Spike Strategy Fosters Sustainable Growth

BizD Rainmakers Hunt for Golden Spike Opportunities

Golden Spike hunting helps companies expand into new markets, develop new products or services and further penetrate existing markets through large sales of slightly modified existing products and services.  The ability to find, nurture and manage Golden Spikes requires patience, diligence, peripheral vision, business acumen and insight, and exceptional time management.

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Thank you for taking the time.

John Bernardi

"Value For Money" Should Be Your New Pricing Strategy

Value For Money Pricing Strategy

In the 1930's Procter an Gamble and Kellogg's invented the value for money concept. They continue to develop their product strategies around what they consider to be the only three possible B2B or B2C behavioral market segments that exist:

1. Effectiveness buyers want to do more with the same resources
2. Efficiency buyers want to do the same with fewer resources
3. Economizers want to do less with far fewer resources

In the prior economy companies matched the product lifecycle stage with a variety of company-centric pricing strategies such as skimming, penetration, customary, etc. In our new economy all buyers will be driven by one of these three behaviors on an opportunity by opportunity basis, not for all of their purchases.

In order to be ready for the different colored light that is now visible at the end of the economic tunnel, successful companies must develop the competency for addressing the respective value-for-money behavior for each opportunity that enters their sales funnel.

All Companies Provide Services

People Purchase Services Differently From Products

Inseparability of the provider from the service itself challenges clients to make objective buying decisions because experience can only be judged during and after service delivery.

Services buyers are influenced by past experiences and referrals.  They lessen risk by observing early adopters, opinion leaders and trusted mavens.  They listen when raving fans tell stories that help them to visualize how the benefits would apply to them.

Services Marketing: Not The Same As Product Marketing

Attract prospects with high quality content when they discover you through your self-service channels.  Provide photos of radiant facilities, hygienic equipment and well-groomed personnel along with other physical proof such as location, reputation for consistent quality and performance, certifications and efficient, courteous service.

Frequent internal marketing must motivate employees and partners to develop customer-centricity and to have the attitude and skills that ensure sustained customer loyalty.  Standardization and training will create advantages through consistent, high satisfaction touch points and rituals.

Services buyers expect empathy and assurance, so allow them to participate in buying decisions. Then, watch and listen for personalization needs so that you can tailor some aspect of your service for them.

Services can't be inventoried like products, so when capacity isn't used, you'll incur idle time due to demand that fluctuates according to day of week, time of day or season. Adjust pricing and bundle or unbundle features to optimize capacity when demand is low.  Use idle time for training.

All Businesses Operate Within A Services Economy

Even companies that consider themselves only as purveyors of tangible products can differentiate themselves through pre-sale consultative services and post-sale support.

By John Bernardi

A Lesson On How To Kill Your Brand

Is Your Company Doing What It's Known For?

Not too long ago HP was branded as a technical innovation leader - not by itself, but by its customers.  Its tailored products were expertly aimed at a well-defined target market [not all things to all users]. Prior to 1990 I always marveled at the strong affinity that  customers had with the HP brand.  I learned this from my experience competing directly with HP while working for Texas Instruments and Tektronix.  HP customers were passionate about HP and willing to engage in verbal battles defending HP.  I remember how HP's RPN scientific calculator language created vociferous arguments between HP customers and TI's customers who preferred TI's AOS calculator language.  HP's engineering workstation was the market leader.  HP minicomputers owned the manufacturing automation marketplace. HP OpenView was the leader in IT systems management.

HP always competed on value, never on price.  It's prices were always higher, but perceived value was too. The new HP tries to blend the old HP with its acquisitions - Digital Equipment, Compaq, and others.  Now HP competes on price and tries to sell to everyone.  I don't think HP has that passionate brand appeal of days prior to the 90's.

I'm disappointed to be greeted with a commodityish home page when I visit www.hp.com.  I'm sure Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard would feel the same way I feel.

Cheap Doesn't Mean Low Price

Use Your Words Wisely

Cheap Doesn't Mean Low Price

It's like finger nails scraping a blackboard when I hear someone say that their product is cheaper, or that they are looking to buy something that is cheaper.

Do they really mean that?  Cheap translates to "poor quality", not better value.

If a quality product happens to be available at a lower price, wouldn't it be better to say that it's less expensive or more economical?

With this as the backdrop, can someone tell me what they'd rather buy or sell that is "cheaper" than the alternative?

New Paradigm Overexposes Kodak

In the early 1990's who could have imagined that Canon Sure Shots, Blackberries, iPhones and iPads would be looming on the horizon?

Market leaders manage their dynamic product portfolios to keep pace with trends so that new paradigms aren't killers.

Kodak took its eye off the mark.  Now, it will file for Chapter 11 because there remains only small well-defined niches for its best-in-class traditional products.  In fact, in order to raise cash, there's talk about Kodak selling digital imaging patent rights.

Who is being held accountable for all those grandmothers whose shares of Kodak have dropped from $6 to $.75 per share ?  Who was in charge when the paradigm shift began?

Kodak was unwilling to respond to the paradigm shift that wrecked its dynasty.  The same fate sounded the death knell for many product-centric leaders. Polaroid is mostly in the past.  Digital Equipment didn't want to cannibalize its minicomputer business. Tektronix thought its proprietary hi-res graphics technology could never be topped.  Buggy whip manufacturers didn't recognize that they were in the transportation business.

What a great case study for innovators.

Business Development In Its Basic Form

Find Ways To Win Today

While Building For The Future

Allow your business to be the best it can be by answering four basic questions every day:

1. What will my business look like in a couple of years if I continue to run it in its current form?
2. What could I be doing today to improve short term results?
3. What would I like my business to look like in 2 to 3 years?
4. Will short term results subsidize my company's future?

Now, you're ready to define business development's role for your business.

"Value for Money" Buyers

Procter and Gamble and Kellogg's, inventors of the "value for money concept" in the 1930's, develop their product and pricing strategies around three behavioral personas:

1. Effectiveness buyers want to do more with the same resources
2. Efficiency buyers want to do the same with fewer resources
3. Economizers want to do less with far fewer resources

Through the early 2000's companies have profited from a variety of self-centered pricing strategies i.e. skimming, penetration, customary, etc. Our new digital and global economy has changed all that, so companies that do not directly address one of the three value-for-money behaviors will fail.

As we continue evolving, all buyers will be fully entrenched into one of these behaviors, but on an opportunity by opportunity basis, and not for all of their purchases.

So, if a company is unable to categorize sales opportunities in this fashion, it will not be ready for the different colored light that is visible at the end of the "funnel".