"Experience is not
what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you" - Aldous Huxley
This article is
intended to create a guideline to enhancing your sales and marketing
capabilities. You can follow as many of the suggestions as you wish - I wanted
to provoke your thinking.
EMF
recognizes that businesses today are confronted by unparalleled rates of change
that create tremendous challenges. Companies need to differentiate products,
react to on-going market shifts, efficiently streamline support of deployed
products and exploit globalization. The stories we present are true, the
guidelines are proven and the theme is to stimulate you to rethink your
strategy in a rapidly changing marketplace.
Since I was a
young man I have always had the entrepreneurial desire. Setting out without a
guide can be a tortuous experience. It's bad enough knowing what you don't
know. In my case it was worse - I didn't
know what I didn't know. Through trial and error I built five companies (4
medical, 1 computer). The first were near or actual disasters - but through
good fortune I found several mentors who taught me the fundamentals of
customer-based selling and market driven strategies. My success included taking
two companies public - I wouldn't have reached that goal if I not for the good
graces of my mentors.
I sold out
the last of my businesses in the late 80's, took a detour in academics and
returned to the embedded playing field as an industry analyst in the mid 90's.
Although markets have changed over the past 20 years since I was on the product
selling side of the industry, I believe that the strategies that were passed on
to me have merit in today's highly competitive and rapidly changing embedded
marketplace.
My
transformation as a techie to a businessman didn't come from seminars and
course work - it came from my guides posing significant questions to me that
forced me to rethink my markets, products and corporate values. I'd like to
share them with you. I took to these questions not unlike a Zen beginner
confronting his koans. The answers to these questions took a lot of reflection
on my part, and a rethinking of how business is done and might be done better.
Looking back - it's laughable that I had the temerity to advertise that our
products outperformed those of Hewlett Packard (medical). They did but who was
going to believe it? HP did me a favor by taking on our product line and
selling it with theirs.
Let's begin
with what I feel was the most important thought and the questions that ensued:
Axiom #1: The Study of
Your Competition is Critical to Your Success
-
Do you know what
customers like about your competitor's products? Dislike?
-
Are your competitor's
products better than yours; cheaper than yours? Is your marketing strategy able
to anticipate and handle objections?
Axiom #2: The
generation of sales leads is the lifeblood of a company
- What is your Cost
Basis for Providing Sales and Marketing Support?
We turn now
to what you should consider as an internal cost review so that you
strategically understand what it is costing your organization to sell into the
embedded marketplace.
Regardless of what
you do - you are ALWAYS selling
Jerry
Seinfeld tells the story of a woman complaining to her hairdresser that she has
a bad marriage and asks if she should get a divorce. The hairdresser says,
"wow, that' a serious question. I think that you should ask the manicurist
instead of me".
Be careful
where you get your information - it can be more costly than you think.
