B2B buyers realize that they are making decisions that carry a risk to their companies, and to their careers. Everyone in your organization needs to stay aware of this buyer attitude and work diligently to build both credibility and trust in you as manufacturers of these products that, on one hand, hold such promise and potential for your clients and, on the other hand, ... Read More
It is a safe bet that if your internal culture is “what’s good for us” rather than “what’s good for them” then customers will eventually find their way to companies that are riveted on helping to make customers successful. How do you acquire the understanding of customers that is superior to your competitors? As it turns out, it is fairly simple ... Read More
B2B executives all have aspirations for success; many do not realize that achieving aspirations cannot be a one-sided track. It cannot be all about profit. If it were, then running a company would be relatively simple.
This would be a great business, we all joke, if it were not for those pesky customers. But as Peter Drucker once wrote, “the business of a business is to acquire customers. So we have to run our businesses to please customers while still making ... Read More
There are signs of life in the economy.
Bright glimmers of hope are starting to radiate from what had been some ominous, dark clouds of an economy that looked to be in retreat. Jobs continue to be created, industrial production is nearly back to its pre-recession levels, blue-chip stocks have re-couped their losses, and consumer confidence is finally climbing. These are the glimmers of hope that show an economy on the ... Read More
Bottom Line: Investing first in the quality of customer experience, not cost reduction of quantity of transactions, will determine who attracts and keeps the most customers in 2012.
Richard’s Diagram
I can still see the long lost diagram in my head, and I wish it was not lost in my former agency’s history. It was a diagram dreamt up by my partner Richard Blumberg.
Delivering perfect service is the new competitive differentiator. Competitors can catch up fast when you create superior product or service features. And even if they cannot catch up, they can claim to do so on their websites. In our software industry there’s even a term for such verbal copycatting. It is called “Vaporware.”
By Chip Bell–Author, Consultant, Keynote Speaker:
Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do About it
A consultant with an inoperative computer is much like a taxi driver with the taxi in the repair shop. My sick computer needed a particular part to get back into operation. Now get ready to ... Read More
I know, you’re thinking that without hope there is nothing to look for. Your next vacation. Your son’s graduation. Your daughter’s wedding. Retirement and a life of reading and fishing.
That’s the good side of hope. Looking forward to something exciting and rewarding.
There’s another side to hope, and it can be terrible.
A husband hoping against all reality for a cure for a debilitating and terminal disease that knocked on his wife’s door ten years ago. Hoping. Praying. Please find a cure in time. But time has run out for her. The damage done is irreversible. This blind hope is like someone playing a dirty trick on you.
By Chip Bell, Author and a new contributing author to this blog.
Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What To do About it; co-authored by Chip Bell and John R. Patterson
George Clooney taught us the meaning of the phrase “the perfect storm” with the movie by the same name. It is a rare combination of circumstances that create a synergistic, negative result. It is the weather version of 1+1+1 is “a whole lot more than 3.”
The worst recession of this century left customers anxious and risk-averse. Even those not impacted directly had plenty of friends who were. It left customers picky and fickle. New normal customers only care ... Read More
You Ask: What About You? Read on and you will see.
We all start our businesses with a dream, a vision, an idea. Something we’d like to do for a living. Something we think we can do that customers will want, and that we can do better than anyone else. So we hang out our shingle and go into business.
Now there is one thing all of us who run businesses need. It’s paying customers. Some of us are better at finding paying customers than others. And those of us who do this better are the ones that become successful.
There are all kinds of ways to find customers. That’s what marketing and sales are all about
Or at least, that’s what marketing and sales used to be all about.
Now, we need to flip this house upside down – not ... Read More
