Tag Archives: moore

Judgmental and preemptive statements

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When did this happen in marketing? For the last few years we have seen the political preemptive strike has become common and overused.

EXAMPLE     “All (Only) Reasonable economists say what we did was effective”

This type of statement has no place in marketing. It is negative and separates rather than drawing in. Marketers associate the things we strive to achieve with their product, babies and puppy dogs right! In the 1990s the cultural bubble was self-help books and we started to see marketers slipping that garbage into messaging that failed and even killed some good products.

If today’s cultural bubble is politics and that is your thing great. While I personally think this is more dangerous than self- help books marketers need to protect from any similar speech in their messaging. Segmentation teaches us that more today than ever the market is a rich matrix of individuals who belong to many tribes. To insert judgmental or eliminating terms can separate market share from your product.

Geoffrey Moore famously wrote about the positioning unlike statement. That focus was to define your product as part of product group.

EXAMPLE “Unlike many whole grain breads, Our product does not use whole lumber fillers”

 Think about the difference of these two examples. Use the later not the former, the first is negative the latter definitive.

Leading the Market

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Geoffrey Moore speaks of tornados and his key point is you can’t create a tornado, they happen!    

Leading the market is revolutionary showing the market the next bend in the trail and how to hike around it, For anyone that has hiked in the Wests vast red rock areas where there is bend after bend it presents a good analogy for short and long term market goals. Each canyon has two points and a ravine, starting at a point you can see the other point however the path travels the long way back the ravine and out again. 

Each canyon is leadership, Traveling many canyons is daunting. Some can see beyond many canyons this fundamental type leadership is a gift and a curse. The curse is that often the market makes other choices and moves away from the vision. Now the visionary needs to adjust. In the movie Matrix the Oracle demonstrates visionary balance with one line. “I cannot see beyond the choices I have made”. 

Choices are questions that need to be answered before a move. Breaking down the great market visionaries you see that they follow the Oracles’ Rule of one choice at a time while holding something bigger in their dreams. Many thing the iPod changed music but truly Apple took one step across many areas in listening to personal music. MP3 players were in the market, he reduced the size and made discovery of your music simple and fun. iTunes was also a single choice, storing a library of music in a simple application that also controls and respects copyrights so the content industry will support you. 

Putting all the choices together changes thing significantly, but all were just the next step. Selling and Marketing gurus teach to disclose needs and sell into the needs. Put these two concepts together and you can not only sell into a market successfully but you can take the next step and lead them through their next choice.

Creating Urgency!

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Geoffrey Moore  In his book “Inside the Tornado” describes a Tornado in marketing as the rapid pull event a company experiences when the market decides that a product of type of product is something that they need. In the book this move across the Chasm from the early market to mainstream adaptation is like a tornado pulling everything up in path.

Tornados can’t be created! I will say it again they are a market, product, sociological event, the perfect storm if you will, Tornados cannot be created by marketers. Nor can we shift them or redirect them. When I was younger and an early student of these ideas I thought that maybe I could. Nope! They just happen!

Yes companies need to innovate and do all the things we do and drive that early market behavior and awareness. Sell those innovators and listen and respond and prepare for the path up the mainstream of the lifecycle curve, but don’t try to create what only the market can!

In sales training we learn to create urgency but honestly aren’t we truly just helping a customer see their need then creating a path for them and you to get them there? Good Consultative sales executives know as good marketers that the conversation with the market and customer is a gentle dance of needs and solutions.

In marketing when a tornado begins a smart marketer is prepared to ride it like Pecos Bill. But don’t try to tame it just enjoy, prepare the product extensions to gobble up the near verticals and deliver. The Just ship stage for sales is similar but the action is, just say yes take the order then pass the account off to a manger or whomever in your company that delivers. Good sales people shake hands, then move on, of course you call once a month but that is for referrals and to make sure the base camp team has moved in and is taking care of things. Great sales people are like climbers and seek the next peak.

We don’t create emotions others! My kid sister is a school Psychologist who would agree I am sure that adolescents like early markets have all the emotions and energy they need. Creating urgency or movement is more therapy, helping them see what they know and reassuring them they got it right!

Got Urgency?  I hope so because it comes from you nowhere else.