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27
Nov

Differentiation is key to selling in a tough market

Categories: Differentiation, Featured
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Great products always have a market. The question is this: What’s the value proposition that makes sense in difficult times? If your product is all about quality, you have two advantages over lesser products:

  1. Your product can enhance your customer’s brand
  2. You can offer risk-reduction purchasing strategies to your customers.

Both of these differentiators depend on the quality of your product. If your offering is really well-designed, and it stands out from the crowd, you can offer your customer a way to differentiate, simply because they own and use your product. This applies to furniture, lighting, stationery, web design, product packaging and a host of other things. If you can enhance your customer’s brand, you have unique value in a tough economy. Your customer needs to be differentiated, just as you do. This is one way you can be successful in tough times.

The second factor is about risk reduction. Of course you can always offer money-back guarantees, performance guarantees and the like. These are time-tested selling strategies. The problem is that if you don’t have a great product, too many customers will call in the guarantees. Ideally you want to offer the guarantee and have no-one take you up on it, because it costs money to service a guarantee. That’s why there’s such a strong link between quality and risk reduction. The better the quality of your product, the better a guarantee you can offer. The better the guarantee, the more compelling the risk reduction argument. And the more compelling your risk reduction offer, the more likely your customer is to buy from you—especially in tough times like these.

The bottom line: now, more than ever, quality sells.

21
Jul

Finding your Unique Value

Categories: Differentiation, Featured
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We are experts at ignoring and tuning out. We especially ignore things that are like other things we’ve seen before. It’s a natural response to the clutter that surrounds us every day. Our brains have learned to look for the new and the different, and to ignore that which is undifferentiated. Most of marketing is about efficiently defeating this built-in, natural reflex, and causing potential customers to see our offering as new and different and valuable. In product and service positioning, it’s vital to stand out. In this article I will talk about some simple ways of setting yourself apart from the pack. First, some preconceptions that we might as well remove right at the beginning.

  • Nothing has to be a commodity
  • Differentiation isn’t always about the product
  • Business is not a war with your customers.

Here’s an instructive story about differentiation in the most difficult of circumstances: Read more

15
Mar

Brand Magic

Categories: Featured
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I have never been branded in the physical sense;+ however millions of farm animals over the centuries would attest to its effectiveness. The original of the word “brand” is in old Norse–the language of ancient Scandinavia. It means “to burn.” It was a good idea in Scandinavia to burn an identifying mark into the rump of your livestock, because the cattle had to roam about to find enough food, and anyhow, building fences was a lot of work. Read more

20
Jul

Welcome!

Categories: Featured
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This site is dedicated to improving your business results. Every business needs customers who know who you are, what you offer, and why they need it.

You can build your market presence and creating outstanding business results, if you’re willing to follow a few simple steps.

On this site you’ll find a great range of free articles that explain the key actions that will build your business through awareness, clear messaging, and effective positioning.

We value the time you spend with us: feel free to apply these techniques to make the most of your business opportunities!

Tim

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Recommendations
Andrea Casotto, CEO, Runtime Design Automation
Tim has the ability to understand complex issues extremely quickly, and to make them understandable to others. His clear thinking and wide experience have been very helpful to us in developing a stronger marketing strategy and message. He is also a fluent and effective writer, helping us to tell our story in a simpler and more compelling way.
Jill Borcherding – Interior / Exterior Design
Tim is a true Renaissance Man. He is gifted in Art and Architecture, Music, Science, History, and Business Acumen. All of his talents coalesce to make him a deeply profound individual with great skills and insight. It is my pleasure to know him.
Ketan Joshi, VP Marketing, Atheer
I had the pleasure to work with Tim on marketing and strategy projects on multiple occasions. Recently, Tim helped our team focus the positioning of a multifaceted product. His facilitation skills were a hit with our team: he was able to rapidly integrate and synthesize the ideas of many people, effectively. I look forward to working with Tim in future projects.
Michael Sanie, Marketing Director, Synopsys, Inc.
“Tim is one of the best people I have seen who can think of long term strategies while not forgetting about the realities of what can be achieved - a rare combination in purely strategic thinkers. He is also a superb communicator and team lead. He can communicate effectively and comfortable at many levels (engineers, middle managers, and executives) and via several media (written, presentation, face-to-face dialog, etc.). Most importantly, Tim is a pleasure to work with. With Tim, even the hardest situations become "fun" challenges to work through.”
Kay Lawton, Marketing Communications Manager, Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
“Tim was the lead on an international event with which my team lent our expertise and assistance. While working onsite during the high-stress weeks preceeding this event, I found Tim to be very supportive of the work his team was responsible for. His strategic and creative sides are most evident, as well as his understanding of the tactical side of marketing programs. The program was a collaborative success. It was a pleasure doing business with him.”
Sandeep Khanna, Co-Founder, Co-Administrator at Champion School
I have had the pleasure of collaborating with Tim on a few corporate initiatives in the past year. Tim is a very positive person. I can't remember being in a meeting with him and not be thoroughly engaged or enjoying myself. Even when we were mostly disagreeing. Additionally, Tim has an innate ability to make even the most complex concepts easy to understand and make people his well wishers. That served us well when a cross-functional team comprising of Cadence's thought leaders, with strong opinions and big egos, was brought together to propose key compenents of a key strategic thrust. That proposal was well received and is in early stages of execution with one huge sales success already, during this past quarter. I look forward to collaborating with Tim again, in the near future.
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