Get It Right and Satisfy Customers, Not Satisfice a Situation for the Sale

Recently, I’ve written about two aspects of the sales funnel that are typically overlooked though they directly contributing to revenue.  However, you’ll never reach the right customers without a successful branding process and you won’t be able to sell products (or services) if you don’t understand your competition from a shifted perspective.

Now that you know what your potential purchases aren’t getting from the marketplace and have identified who your company truly serves, the next best step is to capture how you can satisfy the right customers.

There are all sorts of acronyms for the sales funnel.  TOFU, MOFU, BOFU… AIDA… ARC… SPIN — you get the point (even if you don’t get all the acronyms).

A robust sales funnel has six stages:

• Awareness -  this opportunity may be achieved through organic or paid email marketing, search engine placement or social media messaging where you are identifying prospective consumers out of the entire client opportunity
• Consideration - once the connection has moved to interest, consumers begin searching for information to evaluate how they can meet their identified needs through website research and eCommerce reviews
• Preference - this stage cultivates relationships and can influence perceptions on the value of your solution, where informed consumers make a well-timed decision for the best product or service for their situation
• Purchase - once the conversion has been made for the consumer to become your customer, using a systemized follow-up methodology that doesn’t rely on human memory improves opportunities for touch points and increased positive interaction
• Loyalty - repeat business is essential, though if ‘forced’ or achieved via lack-of-choices, your business is contingent on satisficing needs
• Advocacy - leading to increased revenue, the best funnel is supported by word-of-mouth endorsement

Wait.  What’s that word satisficing? It happens after sales, after all the interaction and research, so you must have done things right, right?

Wrong.

If you’ve put the wrong effort into getting any sale, then you aren’t satisfying anyone (except maybe a short-sighted sales manager).  What you’ve been doing is throwing spaghetti on a wall to see what sticks and gets you to your target number.

That’s satisficing — it’s taking a “sales suspect” and giving them most of what they want rather than fulfilling all that they need with your solution.

Here’s an example.  You sell two microwaves (one at 1100 cubic inches at 700 kw power and the other at 900 cubic inches and 1000 kw power).  A consumer needs a microwave, and he likes to reheat leftovers quickly.  This means a higher power machine.

Mr. Consumer comes to your website and sees the two options. But the higher power microwave won’t fit his current leftover dishes.  So he will either have to shop for new dishes after buying your smaller cubic inch microwave or he will have to wait longer to heat his meal evenly.

This is satisficing — it makes the consumer pick something he doesn't want to get an option he does want, where he is not being totally satisfied with the process or prospects even if he purchases from you.

While easiest to describe in the purchase and post-purchase phase as its easier to quantify, this may occur in every and any phase of the funnel.  

This is when you could be satisficing:

• Awareness satisficing -  providing a limited opportunity for learning about your products or (perhaps worse) giving the right message on the wrong channel where your future loyal customers don’t listen 
• Consideration satisficing - having inventory available immediately, though it doesn’t meet the specifications the future loyal customer wants (this is a needs-based miss), or having gaps in your communications strategy for web research
• Preference satisficing - frequently involving delayed or delinquent responses to inquiries, or involving a top-heavy sales pitch without reliable facts and outside endorsements
• Purchase satisficing - shoddy packaging, generic (or absent) thank you messaging, or not having the right suggested complementary purchases that exceed expectation stop your sales funnel dead in the water
• Loyalty satisficing - a one-time customer will not return to your company for future needs 
• Advocacy satisficing - the only impact here is negative if you’ve failed in any previous step

Strong strategic branding addresses the first three errors, which is why you spend time before pushing a product to answer the right questions.  Beating the competition before you get started addresses the last three errors thereby avoiding quicksand.

Don’t just set the target numbers and hope to make monthly sales, or you won’t have very many months to make sales. Fix it.  Do the right thing at the right time by identifying what people want and then giving them more.

Remember, there is a human behind the curtain even in the new “fake news” filters, a future topic in these articles where we’ll discuss the importance of real reviews versus the rumor mill affecting your business.

Heather M. Hilliard is Principal and Chief Strategist for R. Roan Enterprises, LLC, a professional services consulting firm supporting businesses in pointed areas of expertise as well as with individuals for targeted projects or career development. For more articles like these, visit her posts on LinkedIn or on G+. 

#seizetheday, #makeithappen

Info, Info Everywhere

There's a lot of information out there... but it's not all good data and certainly isn't all smart.  What's the difference?

Consider your kitchen.  Everything is inside it to make a meal, but it's not all relevant at every meal.  You may not use a skillet when baking a pie, for instance.  Your kitchen has "information" in it; data are the relevant components to your project.

The internet helps people and also gets them into trouble.  Millennials are typically the generation that will run to the web and look up information to refute what someone says or to throw together a paper for class.  But information isn't useful if you don't know how to identify the data within...

If you don't have the skills to set yourself apart, you don't just go online, read about a topic and consider yourself an expert. (Well, you shouldn't... anyway.)  To learn about something or understand how to analyze a topic, you need to research, identify important pieces of information, whittle it down to data points, and then see how these pieces play together, fit together, work together, or cause disruption together.

If your big pond of information is drained down to some key pieces of data, how (or if) they interact is called intelligence.  Projects that use higher level of intelligence typically present their findings in logical, clear, and direct manners.  Projects that don't rate as high on the "good to great" factors usually just throw some data your way.  The manner in which you put your eggs and flour together says if you will get bread or a cake.  Your data put together smartly makes it intelligent - or not.

One of the biggest information oceans right now are US political races.  If you don't understand how the information is being presented to you, then you can't determine if you are getting real intelligence or some neatly-strung data points.  Make sure you know the difference when it comes to topics that are important to you and your family, you and your business, you and your community.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/25/could-google-inc-really-decide-the-2016-presidenti.aspx

Perception is Everything

They say that perception is everything.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Art is subjective.  Freedom of speech is an inalienable right.

But, when you say something and it is perceived otherwise, what happens then? Do you keep a list of mistakes? Frequently, we all hear stories of one person bringing up a "list" of things that went wrong, freely pointing out the fault of others.

It's been a hot topic on social media that women use the self-depreciating posturing by over-using an apology.  When you take your perceptions and apply them to group action - not an individual or a sub-group - it just doesn't make much sense.  These perception problems stem from the erosion of manners.  ["Pardon me" doesn't imply fault; it doesn't require a response or blame - and since there isn't an actual infraction there is NO need for an apology.  It doesn't give all the power to the other person like "sorry" does.  Lackluster manners contribute to social ills - good manners should be at the top of everyone's to-do list - and when children see adults acting their age, the good role model will carry to a further generation.]

Perception is also very different based on personal background and educational training.  Generally, it wouldn't be a straight link to think of a physicist talking about a beautiful life.  They consider small parts and velocity and heat, right?

A scientist that wins the Nobel Prize actually can think about art and history and music in a non-scientist way.  The perception of "appreciating the complex" is very interesting when this particular man talks about the beauty of nature.

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/09/06/438031629/the-multiverse-of-perception

Consider someone else's point of view - you might learn a thing or two.

Four Elements and Driving Success

Astrological signs look at them.  Music draws us to them. Sports revolves around them. Life's moments are separated by nature's elements: earth, wind, fire and water.

Creativity links elements in the most unique way. Paper is typically made of plant "earth" material (wood, bamboo, etc) and previously, one of these posts showed how paper and ink (also made originally of plant material or minerals), was reforming water when high-technology isn't viable for poorer countries, poorer people. Cheap and easy, water becomes safe to drink. Earth and water supporting life.

Yesterday, descriptions of inspiring curiosity and the magnification of objects very small all for the cost of a dollar. Energizing young minds, the designer describes kids' natural ability to go look at anything - holding up the microscope in the air, putting anything underneath the snap-card form to see what is held in the air and the world around them. The "creative fire" is sparked to look at land, sea and sky.

On Wednesday, reports reveal self-healing material that rebinds itself by just adding water. "The researchers cut it, then put the two pieces back together with a drop of water" and it was just as strong as before the damage. This could hasten ship repairs, change the design of telecommunications infrastructure... So many things that could be improved with a single drop of water. And, who knew squid had this many teeth! Makes you rethink that swim in the ocean, huh?

While these are our world's four elements, you need to balance four elements in your life. Imagine the possibilities when you stop having uneven force on one area and can balance the elements of your career and your life for even greater success. Maybe your personal elements are creativity, passion, determination and social responsibility. Define your elements today and start improving your tomorrow.

http://www.popsci.com/researchers-create-self-healing-material-inspired-by-squid-teeth

Past Present - a Thirst for Knowledge

NCIS: New Orleans started the show last night with "tell me who you love and I'll tell you who you are", saying it was an old creole proverb (being discussed by two white guys in Mobile, but that's neither here nor there).  But now, for the rest of the story...


Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) was a Spanish novelist and playwright, most famous for "Don Quixote", considered to be the first European novel - and he is attributed with the quote "Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art."  There was heavy Spanish influence in the beginnings of settling south Louisiana.


Arséne Houssaye (French novelist and poet, who recently came back to the forefront when two years ago, Harvard discovered that one of his original manuscripts from the mid-1880s was bound in human flesh) is likely the closest antecedent that influenced the "creole" quote used last night, given the French connection with Creole culture and the Louisiana Purchase history.  "Tell me whom you love, and I will tell you what you are."


A short time later, Antoine de Saint-Exupery was born in 1900 (French aviator and most famous for the children's book, "Le Petit Prince") wrote "Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are."  He died in a plane crash while collecting information on German troop movements in the Rhone Valley on July 31, 1944.


These two French authors blend together to give the quote used last night.  Over time, stories change. But stories shape who we are and how we react to a crisis or disaster.  In New Orleans and all of the Gulf Coast, everyone here has a story from "that day".  Always remember that someone's story shapes their response to events.


Your story shapes you, and persuades others.  When at work or play, remember a story can change lives.  This storybook would have helped significantly here after Katrina - but it can help millions moving forward.  Here, it's the book that shapes someone's story... the important thing is to share.  While a picture may be worth a thousand words, but how about pages of a book that can filter water in order to make it safe to drink?  Share the word!

http://m.voanews.com/a/2921076.html

Who Are You?

And who are they?  Well, thanks to mathematics, you can know yourself and others a little better - no long genealogy journey televised with shocking revelations, no blood draws or mouth swabs.  It is a computer algorithm, formatted to look like a "translation" screen- thoughts on the left, transparency on the right.


Don't write something special for this test, because that's akin to counting cards.  Take a sample of your writing - a work email, a grant report, a training description - and enter it into the box.  Out of the box comes the description.  You can see how easy it would be to run this on your coworkers, too.  You could even run the test for different points in time, or with writing samples intended for different audiences.


Who's to say you couldn't run your sales material and your client communications to check the pulse on how you may come across to those market segments???  Or what could happen with political speeches or press releases as they are run through the "truth filter"?


Mercedes Benz used a great graphic in its advertising several years back, depicting the left brain versus the right brain.  Familiar to many people as it was in vogue to try to fit yourself into a right brain or left brain workplace. From that advertisement:


Left brain
I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.


Right brain
I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.


You have two halves of the brain - you use them both.


As you take a journey to the center of your world, remember that you are more than "they" say you are.  You are a work in progress - having a touch-point is always helpful to make sure your progress is in the right direction. You can't be confined to a box.  And, after all, this is artificial intelligence.

https://watson-pi-demo.mybluemix.net

Same dog, new trick?

We can get so familiar with something that we just "know" what will happen.  It could be a television show's plot, a child's behavior, a friend's order at a restaurant, or how a new novel will unfold.  But, what happens when we stop guessing and we look at the facts?  Can you see something new with that old trick? 


http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-secret-power-of-moocs/396608/