Alan Hale

Consulting and V.o.C. research in b2b markets leading to insight and actionable strategies and tactics. Providing marketing research for b2b. This makes market research actionable and enables better business decisions

I am the founder of Consight Marketing Group, LLC. I have an MBA in marketing; 40 years experience with over 250 projects helping companies in business to business markets grow their business.  I am also a contributing author to Quirks Magazine. This extensive consulting background is combined with voice of the customer research to develop customer specific insights which are used to develop actionable strategies and tactics. Rather than relying on web surveys or focus groups, the majority of the insight is developed by utilizing in-depth phone interviews with key decision makers and influencers of large accounts which may make up 80% of a company's revenue in a business to business market. This effort becomes an investment rather than just an expense. 

Consight Marketing Group, LLC is passionate about helping companies delight customers and make them raving fans as coined by Ken Blanchard. 

Who we work with:

Companies serving b2b markets, from manufacturing firms, wholesalers, construction firms, to professional service firms.

Presidents, General Managers, Directors of Marketing, Vice Presidents of Marketing

Ideal clients are manufacturers, professional service firms, distributors/wholesalers, and construction companies. The sales range is from $30 million to $100 million for a company or business unit. We have worked with billion dollar companies as well. 

Are you sure you know the needs and desires of your major accounts, or just think you know? We work with companies in the following areas: introducing a new product or service, identifying what needs to be done to increase your customer satisfaction and loyalty with your major accounts, understand why accounts have defected, design effective distribution strategy, re-position your company, or design an effective "go-to-market" strategy for a current or new market. 	

Call Alan Hale at: 847.800.1685 to arrange for a free consultation to determine if we can help you with your marketing issues.

www.Consightmarketinggroup.com

President

A firm which combines consulting and insight from voice of the customer market research to develop actionable recommendations for companies serving b2b markets. Voice of the customer services include customer satisfaction and loyalty, new product/service validation, designing channel strategies, developing go-to-market strategies, lost account analysis, employee satisfaction and alignment.  

What differentiates us is the following: 1. We only do b2b 2. We are easy to work with 3. We do in-depth telephone interviews which last 30 to 35 minutes. These interviews are highly qualitative and include the importance of factors, how well the client performs, how well the competition perform, as well as how well best in class suppliers perform. The interviews are then written up in a transcript format. 4. A presentation presents both the data, the key issues that need to be addressed, and recommendation. Recommendations are driven by a deep understanding of the customer as well as over 39 years experience helping companies with marketing issues. 

Do you really know how your major customers view you, or just think you know?  Please call Alan at 847.800.1685 for a free consultation to see if we can add value to your situation.

I have done over 300 b2b marketing consulting and research projects in my professional life. I thought I would share some learnings in this document.

Please feel free to print out, share with others. It is free no charge no emails required

 Marketing b2b Rules

A flywheel approach to creating raving fans 

1. Identify your ideal customer profile based on your heavy users

2. Determine your product fit customrrs and create a compelling value proposition. 

3. Make sure you have operational excellence. Delivery. Quality. Responsiveness 

4. Ensure great customer experience  snd be easy to do business with. Try not to say no. Documentation accurate.

5. Identify insights and action initiatives. Start with your platinum accounts ie 80/20 accounts 

6. Audit and fine tune initatives. Based on proactive snd frequent discussions.

The benefits of using customer research

1. You understand the needs wants and pain points of the customer

2. You retain more customers which drives profitability

3. You develop raving fans and brand ambassadors

4. You develop crisper messaging

5. Advertising and social media content can be more relevant 

6. It helps you prioritize focus and investments

7. Supply better information on buying journeys

8. New products are better targeted and go to market quicker which drives profitability 

9. It is insurance justifying investment or telling you not to invest

10. This foundation of understanding insights makes you focused on the right strategies and right tactics

Aren’t we tired of the current state of  b2b marketing malpractice?

Stop wasting resources and drive profitability.

This photo reminds me of marketing trying to figure what to do. No idea.
Just deploying  tactics hoping their product led and sales led strategy is correct.

With no input from customers. No insight research.

It is time to focus on customers and insights as the true north compass point.

Become customer obsessed in serving your customers.

Or continue to guess

Why are raving fans so important? 

Creating raving fans are critical to increasing profit.

1. A new customer costs 5 to 7 times as much as an existing customer

2. According to Bain and Company every 5% increase in retention drives an increase in profit between 25% to 95%

3. In b2b there is almost akways an 80/20 rule, 20% of your customers deliver 80% of your revenue.

So what are the benefits of creating a raving fan?

1. They generally give you a higher wallet share. You become their primary supplier.

2. They are much more likely to be retained driving up profit.

3. They are lower hanging fruit to sell future products, services and solutions.

4. They can be an informed advisory group to bounce issues off of or get input on new products

5. They are more likely to offer testimonials and referrals, although you need to work on this.

So where do companies spend most of their time? New customer acquisition.

For more information read a book called Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard.

Here are steps for creating raving fans.

1. The product must work according to specs and not break down

2. There must be operational excellence. Delivery on time. Responsiveness.

3. Customer experience and supported by customer service, the rep, and technical support. Support on their journey, onboarding and ongoing account support.

4. Ease of doing business. Documentation must be correct. Get aligned with how large customers do business. ERP. Reps getting back to you with quality information in a timely manner.

Look at it this way. If your product is 10% of their purchases and you create 50% of their problems, you are not a partner. You are a major nuisance and are in trouble.

5. Partnership level. Assuming customers want partners in this product line (they won’t for copy paper), find out how to partner with them. Could be special  delivery. Tech support onsite. You only have resources to do this with platinum 80/20 accounts.

6. The result is they become raving fans and are much more likely to be retained. They usually give you more wallet share and are more profitable. They are more likely to be your brand ambassador.

So I have been on a recent long airline flight and I got to thinking about a few issues.

1. In six sigma you measure, adjust and launch initiatives. Then measure again. You become a learning organization 

2. On a plane the the mission is to get to the destination. Sometimes the plane is off course and GPS and air traffic controllers provide the input to get back on course. Outside input. Picture is from free pik

3. Yet most b2b companies are internally driven from paradigms. Product led not customer led. Inside out not outside in with periodic input from customers.

Are you sure your paradigm is correct? In our research we find 20% to 25% client paradigms are correct. This is anecdotal and not statistical. Only one in four or one in five.

We need to align with customer wants and needs and pain points.

Surveys don’t develop insights. Proactive and frequent customer open ended discussions do.

It is like we decided to stray from customers in the last 20 to 30 years.

We need to become learning organizations. If you think your paradigm is right, validate it.

Have proactive and frequent discussions.  

One additional point, in the b2b arena most products are similar. I call this the red drill bit. Product really is not differentiated in things of value to customers. 

Service performed above expectations and customer experience is the true differentiator.

Stop playing with new toys like AI and go talk to customers. Start with 10 then go to 20. Start with your 80/20 accounts 

I am sick to death of this current state of marketing malpractice. 

Align to your customers. Become customer obsessed 

Thoughts?

This is me using GPS to get to the next stage of my clearly delineated buying journey as mapped out by a b2b marketer.

It is as ridiculous as it looks,

Sales and marketing should work together. Instead they frequently battle like fiefdoms in the Middle Ages.

This white paper addresses some issues that can reduce this conflict.

Feel free to download, share or print out.

Please keep CMG logo as the source of white paper.

Sales and Marketing conflict

How do you compete and level your performance against competition? Most companies try to achieve parity on every issue.

McKinsey analyzed competitive performance see the attached infographic.

What they found was that the successful firms did something different.

They did NOT attempt parity on each issue.

Instead they identified the most important top five criteria and blew the competition away on these criteria.

There are many reasons b2b companies do not do market research:

1. SAAS is product led and sales led. Investors don’t require it and only want scalability

2. Larger firms VP Sales and Marketing come up through sales side, no understanding or training in marketing

3. Paradigm of we already know what our customers want

4. C level does not like research. Too costly. Does not lead to action. Poor ROI

5. Takes too long. We will let competitors know. 

6. We will just base strategy on competitors 

7. Marketing won’t push back to c suite for fear of being fired

8. Fear. They fear they will find out they are doing something wrong

9. They believe in having reps ask a few questions

10. Closed ended surveys are sent out instead of defining your vustomer segment and deeply understanding them.

This is where we are.

I have been thinking why innovation frequently fails and why does it take so long

I believe both are tied to lack of customer insight.

Innovation fails a lot maybe 80% of the time. Part of this is calling a new product innovated when it is a minor tweak. New and improved Tide.

Here are some innovations that took way to long in my opinion.

1. Tide pods for laundry and pods for dishes

2, Putting rollers on luggage. Who would have thought women traveling would want roller bags? Sarcasm intended here

3. Slip in shoes like sketchers. Older population has hard time tying shoes, Going through TSA.

4, Combination primer and paint to save labor of one coat.

5. Small tire inflator that inflates tires without using a big compressor.

6. Laptops took too long to come out after desktops and the road warrior?

Sometimes a product innovation is too early for a market. See Newton palm pilot for Apple. There were not enough apps written for it.

Sometimes insight is needed to check on a paradigm

Kodak with digital.

Paper form manufacturers with print on demand 

Nokia and Motorola and Blackberry ignoring increased usage of smart phones

Blockbuster not seeing on demand streaming and relying on dvd tapes


Companies need to get insight from customers. What are there pain points? What are their needs?

Here are a few actual case studies.

1. I did work for an industrial paint company researching an additional product. They said they had a quick dry line. It took an hour to mostly dry but not tack free.

When visiting a few industrial plants the maintenance engineer had to tape off limits until paint dried. What they wanted was paint that dried and was also tack free in an hour. The client reformulated their product line and sales took off.

2. When single ply roofing flooring rest came out there were lots of leaks and some lawsuits. We investigated and concluded that this was a new process and roofing contractors needed to be trained and certified city by city. They were giving it to any commercial roofing contractor.

3. One more example if I may. We had a client who made beautiful architectural ceiling for office buildings, architects loved it, Building owners loved it. It did not sell well.

Why? This grid ceiling was installed by installers. It took about 15% more time to install. If you bid it out with product and labor, you would be 15% or more higher in price, and would lose to other ceiling installer bids from the general contractor.

If you met the competing price the job would not be as profitable.


Insights require focus groups, open ended discussions  as well as ethnography. Why b2b companies don’t do more of this, is beyond me.

You don’t get these insights from surveys or having the reps ask a few questions.

This product led crap needs to have a stake put through its heart.

We need to be customer focused and customer obsessed. Insights then NPD then target segment then launch and communicate

Are you like most companies who spend a ton on new customer acquisition and very little on retaining customers?

New customers are more expensive with some sources saying they are give to seven times more expensive?

Bain and Company says a 5% increase in retention leads to a 25% to 95% increase in profits.

There is an 80/20 rule in b2b. 20% of your accounts have 80% of your volume. Go ahead do the calculation.

What happens if one of these accounts defects? Not good I assume. Conversely if you retain all these platinum accounts and make them raving fans, what happens? They buy more, give you higher wallet share and become brand advocates instead of brand assassins.

So I challenge you. What are you doing to retain these accounts and make them raving fans? The new golden rule. He or she who has the gold, rules.

This leaky bucket also represents your company’s profits leaking or flowing out.

Hopefully this is thought provoking.

When you fill a leaky bucket with more water what happens? What happens if you plug the leaks and reduce the amount of water you pour in? The bucket fills up. Just like your sales revenue and profit.

Comments?

Why can’t I use my reps to ask questions is a question I hear a lot.

Sales people are good at selling and managing an account

But they are not good in conducting marketing research.

I have been doing b2b consukting and marketing research. Here are some of the problems I see in trying to use reps to do research.

1. They have not been trained to have dialogues 

2. Sometimes they cannot stop trying to defend the company with negative  commentary.

3. They are biased and have been initiated in the company paradigms.

4. They are paid on sales not research

5. They are uncomfortable probing and using silence as tools.

6. If someone answers questions they may assume that this one vustomer represents all of them

The solution I believe is the following.

1. Hire a professional b2b research company to conduct interviews. 15 to 20

2. Marketing should be taken along for a couple interviews for training

3. Marketing should spend a minimum of 10% of their time face to face. One day every two weeks. If they do not, they are participating in marketing malpractice.

4. The CEO or President needs to go on a couple of interviews with larger accounts.

They observe customer reactions with no filter.

This drives the importance of customer insights into the DNA of the organization

5. Assign one or two large accounts to CEO and members of c suite. You will help retention and create raving fans.

And you will get high PR marks as it will show that c suite cares.

We have to get back to the customer and customer obsession are the drivers.

What say you?

How confident are you in each major account?

The euphoria panic scale was developed by Miller Heiman of Strategic Selling.

I would suggest plotting each major account on this scale. Each person, rep, marketing, VP Sales should put an adhesive sticker with account name on this scale.

Then take the concern to panic accounts and go have discussions with them. Confirm the place on the spectrum. Determine how you can move accounts left to great.

Then once you have done that validate the accounts toward the euphoria end. Were you right or optimistic.

This is kind of a cool tool to prioritize effort. 
Stop sending out surveys and survey slapping.

It is time to end the current state of marketing malpractice. Customer obsession and customer led not product led.

Thoughts?

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