Services

Over dinner on Sunday some one asked me; “What new course have you got for the times?”

Ah! The downturn discussion! I thought about this and chimed “something on concentrating on your core business and market your way forward with strong selling points and customer service”.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a lamp flickered and lit up the remarkable story of Andrew Cook who in the late 1970s early 80s transformed William Cook, a well established family manufacturer of steel castings, into a market leader when all was against him.

At that time the economy was dismal, dark and uninviting. Output in the industry had been falling for a number of years. But Cook on taking over the company went completely against the trend an invested in increased efficiency, quality and capacity in the least value segment – all at a time when capacity was double the amount of industry sales. Rivals thought he was mad. Indeed conventional thinking would have dictated that Cook milk the business and leave the industry or go into a higher value and differentiated niche.

Remember too that Cook’s didn’t have the image of a Mercedes or an IBM amongst its customers. Neither was it a technological leader, nor did it possess some secret process to guarantee extra income. Nonetheless, Andrew Cook backed his intuition. In a few months his efforts began to yield results.

His investment in a hostile environment transformed the business. Within a few years sales had risen 10% against industry losses. He was the first to invest in BS5750. Within a couple of years he had acquired two of his major competitors and by the ‘90s he had become the market leader.

“What did he do?” you ask. It’s really quite straightforward. He understood his customers. He recognised the value they wanted. His improvements saved customers money which naturally increased demand for his product. Thus Cook generated a double advantage – higher value and lower cost.

When others saw what he had achieved they changed too. They sought to catch up and invoked intense battles … but that’s another story.
For more on how to manage in difficult times why not check out our coaching and workshop programmes in Services

Every week new companies emerge selling their products and services, whatever the type of business. And there are also many successful companies out there looking to expand their businesses. Competition, both good and bad is rife!

So how can marketing help? Can you answer that one?

Simply stated the first rule of marketing is causing the market to desire your product. Peter Drucker puts it another way when he said that;

“… the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.”

In short both definitions add up to the same thing; marketing that attracts customers may be described as power marketing.

People have got tired of leaflets, flyers and sales letters. The reason why some product launches are successful is that the people managing them actually marketed them. Business owners that know about marketing try to find out the emotion that makes people want to buy – they realise that people just don’t buy products or services they buy solutions or benefits that will help them achieve a gain or reduce a problem.

So an early imperative is to find the market first by finding out what people want, and then…to let them buy what they’ve told you they want!

A ‘HUNGRY CROWD’ is an interesting and relevant concept in the context of finding a niche within a market…

At the end of the day a ‘HUNGRY CROWD’ – is a group of people, increasing in number, that really, really want what you have to offer – badly. It’s this that is going to guarantee the success of your business!

The point of all this is to urge you to start to concentrate on spotting your ‘HUNGRY CROWD’. Listen to what people ask for, dream or complain about. It’s not enough for you to sell to people who CAN benefit from what you sell; you need to market to people who WANT to benefit from the SOLUTION you offer. In fact you’ve got to find people who will CLAMOUR for your product, so that sales and marketing becomes a lot easier…

A related point is this. Once people have tried and accepted the benefit you offer, they will come back to you again and again seeking further products and services from you that meet and satisfy their emotionional needs – the fundamental reason for buying from you in the first place.