Comments on: Blogging for Informed Sales in a Competitive Market

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:24:19 +0000

In the education process you have an opportunity to show your customer service excellence, to demonstrate a bit of the customer experience. We all know the sinking feeling of thinking we got a good deal then finding out the company doesn’t want to know us, having a great pre-sale experience can make us feel more confident going in.

By: The Masked Millionaire

The Masked Millionaire — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:20:59 +0000

Advertising on the internet is a process that is slowly sinking into a pit of diminishing returns.

Teaching when done with great competance and skill instills trust and a willingness to believe.

Advertising breeds distrust based upon the consumer’s knowledge that the end game is to extract money from their wallets.

Teaching is often looked upon by the consumer as a conduit to gain knowledge. And because knowledge is power, the consumer will often make the distinction between a transfer of power and a sales pitch.

More often than not the consumer will make the choice to cozy up to power than to have a company slither up to them with their hand out.

Live From Las Vegas
The Masked Millionaire

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:16:03 +0000

@Roger – I am seeing more and more companies coming round to this idea of helping rather than selling. An example is my optician provides free eye tests because they know when people have a great eye test experience they are likely to buy glasses, contact lenses, refer their friends and book their kids in. Free, valuable advice, delivered well, leads to a better customer relationship.

@Roger Anderson – I will swap you, review copy of your book for one of mine

@Richard – Advertising isn’t going to go away, there will always be a place for advertising. My point here is people use it as their only tactic. Actually, this deserves a post

By: Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd

Richard Morton - QM Consulting Ltd — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:57:10 +0000

Chris, what you are saying makes good sense and I have certainly experienced the digital photography scenario myself. Just to throw another idea into the pot though, if everybody gets this idea and there is a shift away from advertising, then that might not be so good for the internet as a whole. We have become so used to the internet being (virtually) zero cost to use that we forget that much of it is funded by advertising. If we only had to pay things like current levels of ISP costs then the infrastructure would be unsustainable. What do you think? I would have blogged on this topic myself but it doesn’t quite fit the blog I am running at the moment.

By: Roger Anderson

Roger Anderson — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:44:58 +0000

Sorry, one more thought. On the “Theory of Constraints” concept. I know one of the founders of what is now called Embassy Suites. It is a fairly successful long-term stay hotel. He told me once that the key to success is “getting to the no” in the process. If you accept maybe or “send me literature” you will not know why people are actually rejecting you. Push a little more until you get to the no. It is hard at times because we do not want to hear no. When you accept that maybe and send me literature is really no, then you become more courageous.

Once again, good post.
BTW – love the new email format. I do appreciate the subject line.

By: Roger Anderson

Roger Anderson — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:38:49 +0000

Chris,
The cycle you illustrated is really just a newer rendition of Everett Rogers’ (of the Adoption Curve fame) steps of adoption or “Diffusion of Innovation” as he called them:
1) Knowledge (AKA Awareness)
2) Persuasion (Deciding to buy something like that but not which)
3) Decision (Deciding which thing to buy/try)
4) Implementation (Some people buy things then never use them)
5) Confirmation (Did you like it, are you happy you bought it?)

In my book (shameless plug?) Maps for Modern Magellans (see map 8 http://www.mapsformodernmagellans.com/content/view/30/86/) I added 3 return steps that are based on the buyer or adopter experience:
a) Repeat – buy it again
b) Replace – buy from a different source or version
c) Re-evaluate – think about ever buying something like this again.

I know that I have not commented in a while, but you are so good that I often have little to add. On this one, there was a map (my favorite thing) and I have some experience and perhaps wisdom to add. That and I may be starting anew company and I need to think about these things again. Thanks for the thought provoking post.

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:12:17 +0000

Useful post, thanks Chris.

You’re right of course, in many cases it is lack of knowledge, not lack of awareness that inhibits customer purchase decision. This is where a tool like Twitter can be invaluable.

Rather than push a customer to buy, the vendor can say, “Hey, don’t worry about buying now, just follow our conversation.” They get the prospect to sign up to Twitter (perhaps some incentivising would work here). “Right, you can follow what we’re chatting about with customers like you. No one’s perfect, but we’ll do our best to resolve issues, and you can learn more about what’s going down through our conversations.”

Honesty like this and a low-pressure pitch will be appealing to a lot of customers today, I am sure. We already see some companies adopting a similar model, but it’s yet to be formalized.