Tag Archive for 'selling'

Your future and customer paradigms

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on October 22, 2012
in Future thinking and The Age of the Customer
. 0 Comments

In his book, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, futurist Joel Barker explains that paradigms are filters through which humans view the world and around which we pursue our lives.

Things that align with our paradigms sail right through; otherwise they meet resistance. A favorite color, for example, is a paradigm.

We also establish marketplace paradigms. Perhaps the most interesting paradigm dynamic is between a customer and a business, because a customer’s product paradigm logically becomes a business’s production paradigm.

Product paradigms always work for customers because they can pick and choose at will. But for a business, a production paradigm comes with significant risks, because they can be left with an investment – physically, financially and emotionally – in a newly unviable production paradigm.

When there is a paradigm disruption – like customers changing preferences – that’s called a shift. Barker says when a paradigm shifts, everything goes back to zero; what once worked so well becomes unavailable or obsolete.

When a shift occurs – the ability to buy stocks online, for example – customers easily transition to the new thing that likely caused the shift. But for a business with multi-faceted investments in the old paradigm – only stockbrokers can place stock orders – such a shift can be expensive and dangerously disruptive.

In the past I’ve introduced you to several examples of how the marketplace is transitioning from The Age of the Seller to The Age of the Customer™. This transformation is creating a number of shifts which are at once exciting for some and disruptive for others.

In the new Age, there are three primary shifts a business must now monitor constantly; each associated with a key element of customer relationships.

The Buying Decision
Customers have always controlled the buying decision element, but they now need less decision-making help from a business. The paradigm shift question: “How do we prevent our marketing and sales strategy from becoming obsolete?”

The Information
Previously controlled by businesses, access to information is now almost completely controlled by the customer. The paradigm shift question: “How do we maintain a relevant value proposition?”

The Product
Once controlled by the business, customers increasingly influence product development. The paradigm shift question: “How do we love what we do without loving how we do it?”

Discover the future by monitoring customer paradigms.

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To listen to or read more about how your business can flourish in The Age of the Customer™, click here.

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Are you hidebound or visionary?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on August 21, 2012
in Sales - Sales Management and The Age of the Customer
. 0 Comments

Since 1995, control of the three major elements of your customer relationships – product, information, and buying decision – has been shifting from business to customer. As you may remember, I’ve identified this shift as a marketplace transition from the original age to the new one – the 10,000 year-old Age of the Seller is being replaced by the Age of the Customer.

As this shift plays out, two types of businesses - Hidebound Sellers and Visionary Sellers - currently exist in parallel universes, but not for long. Which one are you?

Hidebound Sellers

These companies are so invested and entrenched in the old order of control that they deny the reality in front of them. They can be identified by the following markers:

  • Misplaced frustration: As performance goals get harder to accomplish, frustration makes those who deny the new realities think their pain is caused by a failure to execute.
  • Bad strategies: It is said that armies prepare for the next war by training for the last one. So it is with Hidebound Sellers. Not only do Age of the Customer influences make them think they’re being attacked, but they persist in using Age of the Seller countermeasures.
  • Destructive pressure: Convinced of execution failure, pressure brought to bear by management results in an employee casualty list instead of a growing customer list.
  • Equity erosion: Defiance in the face of overwhelming evidence sustains the deniers only until they run out of Customers with old expectations, and/or equity and access to credit are depleted.

Visionary Sellers

These businesses are adjusting their plans to conform to the new reality of more control by customers. Visionary Sellers are identified by these markers:

  • Acceptance: They accept that the customer is now in control and make appropriate adjustments to this reality.
  • Modern sales force: They hire and train their sales force to serve increasingly informed and empowered customers.
  • Technology adoption: They offer technology options that allow customers to find, connect, and do business using their preferences.
  • Relevance over competitiveness: They recognize that while being competitive is still important, today it’s just table stakes and is being replaced in customer priority by the new coin of the realm: relevance.

In the Age of the Customer, Hidebound Sellers are dinosaurs waiting for extinction. Visionary Sellers are finding success by orienting operations and strategies around a more informed and empowered customer.

So what’s the verdict? Are you Hidebound or Visionary?

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Blasingame’s Law of Sales Pipelines

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on June 19, 2012
in Business planning and Cashflow - Credit - Collections
. 0 Comments

Selling is a numbers game. Do you know how to manage your sales to plan future revenue? Watch as Jim explains the sales pipeline and how to use it to forecast sales, revenue and cash flow.

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The Age of the Customer: the new normal

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on May 1, 2012
in Future thinking and The Age of the Customer
. 0 Comments

The shift in who has control – seller or customer – is causing the 10,000 year-old Age of the Seller to succumb to the Age of the Customer™. Understanding this is key to the survival and success of your small business.

For millennia, there have been four basic elements of the relationship between a customer and a business: The product, the buying decision, control of information and word-of-mouth. For the first time in history, two of these elements are shifting in favor of the customer.

1. In the new Age, control of the product or service still remains with the Seller, but has diminished as a control factor for at least two reasons: a) virtually everything you sell has become a commodity; b) customers have multiple shopping and purchasing options including traditional and online markets.

2. As it has always been, the Customer continues to retain control of the buying decision. Shifts in the next two elements represent the primary difference between the Age of the Seller and the Age of the Customer.

3. Not since Guttenberg’s printing press first made books available to the increasingly literate masses has there been such a shift in access to information. Indeed, innovations in the past 30 years made the entire universe of human knowledge generally available with a very low barrier-to-entry – including information formerly controlled by Sellers.

4. Once upon a time, knowledge about Customer experience was a function of the word-of-mouth maxim: “If a customer likes you they will tell one person, if they don’t like you they will tell ten people.” In the new Age, the influence of Customer experience has morphed and expanded from classic word-of-mouth to the disrupting phenomenon called “user generated content,” or UGC. This is the electronic posting of customer experiences, questions, praise or condemnation of a Seller’s products and services. If that old word-of-mouth maxim were being coined today it would sound more like this: “Whether customers like you or not, they have the potential to tell millions.”

Here are two Age of the Customer realities to which your business must be able to adjust: 1) customers have virtually all the information they need to make a purchase decision without ever contacting you; and 2) there is no place for bad performance to hide.

Write this on a rock… Your future survival and success depends on whether you embrace or disregard the Age of the Customer.

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It’s the Age of the Customer - get over it!

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on February 16, 2011
in Problem solving and Sales - Sales Management
. 0 Comments

Markets were born when humans chose to acquire what they needed by trading with each other rather than producing it themselves or taking from someone else by force. The moment of proto-market conception was when the first seller offered to trade with the first customer, and that offer was accepted.

For millennia, this marketplace dance was as beautifully simple as it was exquisitely effective, having at its nucleus three primary elements:

1. The product, controlled by the seller
2. Information about the product, also controlled by the seller
3. The buying decision, controlled by the customer

From that first transaction, when shells were the reserve currency, to about 1995AD, the marketplace dance was performed zillions of times with little variation. I’ve termed this period “The Age of the Seller,” because the Seller controlled two of the three elements.

Then something happened that had not occurred for 10,000 years: A new age – I call it The Age of the Customer™.

This new Age was born as micro-computers and associated innovations converged with high-speed Internet and associated applications. As this convergence shifts marketplace paradigms, it conveys the balance of power from the seller to the customer.

The millennia-old marketplace dance is still beautifully simple. But when the dancers come together in the Age of the Customer, a new leader emerges, because control of the three major relationship elements has changed:

1. Products and services are still controlled by the Seller.
2. Information – including customer experiences – is now easily and abundantly available to the Customer without being controlled, filtered or distributed by the Seller.
3. The buying decision is still controlled by the Customer.

The Age of the Seller is succumbing to the new Age as customers resist the restrictions of the former Age and embrace the empowerment of the new. During this transition period, Sellers are operating in parallel universes, but not for long.

Your small business is now operating in a new age where customers rule. They like this new-found empowerment, and increasingly expect sellers to connect with them on Age of the Customer terms. Sellers that transition to the new Age with their customers will be successful. Hidebound sellers, nostalgic for when they had control, will become irrelevant and perish.

It’s the Age of the Customer – your world has changed.

Recently on The Small Business Advocate Show I talked more about the Age of the Customer and how you can avoid becoming irrelevant. Take a few minutes to click on the links below and listen. As always, leave your comments on what is working for you in the 21st century marketplace.

It’s the Age of the Customer - get over it!

Avoiding irrelevance in the Age of the Customer

When “No” turns into the quantum leap for small business

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on October 31, 2010
in Sales - Sales Management
. 0 Comments

What do you do when you work hard to get a prospect’s business and they say “no?”  When this happens, as it inevitably will - many times in your career - the first thing to do is to NOT take it personally.  Remember, this is not a rejection, it’s just business. And just because they’ve said no today, doesn’t mean they won’t say yes to you in the future.

But for the no to turn into a yes, you first have to show some class. This means you swallow hard, smile, thank them for considering you, ask them if there is anything you can do to help them make the conversion to the “other guys” - I’m serious! - and tell them you will keep working to get their business in the future.  And then continue to check back with them.

If you use this strategy whenever you don’t get the business, you’ll be amazed how many “No”turns into “Yes.” It might be as soon as that very day or it might be in five years, but more people than you think will respond favorably to your demonstration of class and professionalism.

Recently, I talked about this with long-time Brain Trust member, Jeff Zbar, on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show.  There are actually two short segments to listen to that cover this topic completely, including the Holy Grail of persevering in sales, the “quantum leap.”

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to listen and learn. And, as always, be sure to leave your thoughts, comments and experiences.

Click on one of links below to listen or download:

When a prospect doesn’t become a customer

How to accomplish the quantum leap