Top Line Results

Marketing and Sales Singing in Perfect Harmony

Todd's Blog — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:55:00 GMT

Remember the old Coke commercials with the happy clappy song……I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…..

Remember the Hanson brothers in the movie Slapshot, ”More teamwork!”

Sales and marketing need harmonious teamwork for optimum results.

Please read this blog post from Tom Marin at MarketCues about making this harmonious teamwork a reality.

http://blog.marketcues.com/marketcuesblog/2010/02/which-is-more-important-sales-or-marketing.html

Tom and I are working to deliver sales marketing integration to our consulting clients.....look for much more on this subject in the future.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando,FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Are we this predictable?

Todd's Blog — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:52:00 GMT

Just watched this video after seeing it on Todd Defren’s blog PR-Squared. http://www.pr-squared.com/

After I stopped laughing out loud through the entire two minutes I came to realize two critical points:

Is your marketing/sales-pitch/value proposition/web site/whatever interesting or unique in any way?

Is your marketing/sales-pitch/value proposition/web site/whatever so predictable that it can be made fun of like this take on the ‘news’?

Actually for many of us being interesting or relevant enough to be made fun of would be a victory over the stale, boring, and irrelevant stuff we mostly produce and lack interest we create.

If you are in sales and are stuck with a marketing group that bores your future customers to death making them someone else’s future customers then I challenge you to find a way to be memorable, interesting, and relevant.

I am challenging myself to make www.top-line-results.com such a place. Stay tuned and please tell me if I am succeeding.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Ever Think About Why You Ask Questions?

Todd's Blog — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:33:00 GMT

Recently I was asked, “Do you have 4 or 5 questions you always ask future customers?”

Here is my answer:

Yes and no. I don't think I ever ask the same questions the exact same way, but I do ask the same types of questions.

And one very important point, I try to elicit emotion from the customer as a result of my questions. Where is the pain, fear, hope, love - the goal being a solution from my company that addresses the emotional issue? Sometimes the result is that I cannot help them, something I am always on the lookout for. I try very hard not to oversell.

For example here are few areas I always try to uncover more detail about along with some sample questions:

1. If they are talking to me something is not right so....what is it and how did they get here. I am asking questions to find the gaps in expectations and reality so I can insert my services/proposal as the bridge. Up front I am not trying to get to root causes so much as to just identify the problem in a way that allows me to show them that I can get to the root causes - if they hire me.

2. What is working to gain them clients - this is a broad area but I focus them down on what specific efforts they are making that are working.

3. What is not working to gain them clients - where have they failed?

4. One of my favorites is "what happens if you do nothing/or don't hire me"? I want to understand the options they are considering so I can position my services as the best one/best ROI/highest probability of success etc...

5. I try to find out the personal stake my client has individually in the success or failure of the company and of the project. What are their personal drivers?

I have heard in my short time as a consultant:

"I want to retire and need someone in place to handle this.”

“I want a promotion and can't get it without growing the business.”

“I want to quit my job and start a new company and need a sales and distribution partner.”

“I want to grow my business and beat competitor x because I really hate them personally (not in these words but that is what he meant).”

“I need to grow my business because my family members are my biggest investors and I cannot let them down.”

In each case I am helping these people hit the goals stated in the proposal along with these unwritten emotional ones.

See this link for a post from consulting guru Alan Weiss about questions. I love that guy - I think his list is well organized, though I would ask some of the questions in a different way, he outlines nicely the questions you should be asking to get the info you need for most any proposal.

http://www.contrarianconsulting.com/101-questions-for-any-sales-situation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+contrarianconsulting/alansblog+(Contrarian+Consulting)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Always Be Willing to Walk Away

Todd's Blog — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:28:00 GMT

“Always be willing to walk away” is a cliché we have all heard and practiced to some degree or another over our business and car buying careers. You wouldn’t think that this saying is someone’s law, corollary, or unique creation – you would be wrong.

I just finished Negotiation Boot Camp by Ed Brodow and the author claims the above cliché as his “law of negotiation” and names it as such. He calls it Brodow’s Law.

My point here is not to argue the merits of whether this is his law or someone else’s or no one’s – my fascination with his Law lies in the fact that he is repeating what everyone has already heard and knows to be true. Throw in some real world examples and some lists of tactics, and the result is a decent book on basic negotiation skills.

What do you know that you are not sharing? Do you have something you are good at or that works well for you? Who can you share it with?

What about your customers? What can you help them with?

Are you a good prospector for new leads? Share your secrets with you customers – they need more leads too!

Are you good at follow up? Share your time management tips and organizational tools with clients in a newsletter article.

Everyone that I know that reads this blog (thank you very much by the way) has a tremendous amount to offer – I challenge each of you to think differently about how you offer it.

You never know, maybe there is a Law waiting to be named after you.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

What matters to you?

Todd's Blog — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:01:00 GMT

As I sit here with my beautiful wife and kids I find myself amazed at the blessings in my life as well at my ability to get distracted from what matters most.

This is the season to count your blessings and to think about what matters most and what matters now......so of course I just ran across this e-book titled "What Matters Now" from Seth Godin and wanted to share it with you.

From my family to yours we wish you a blessed holiday.

Download e-book here.

Thankful

Todd's Blog — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:57:00 GMT

Here is a list of some of the things I am thankful for in relation to marketing, sales, customers, and being an entrepreneur -- in addition to these things I am obviously supremely thankful for family, friends, faith and good fortune:

1. Partners who are a joy to work with, even though we get frustrated at times, and with whom I share the loftiest and best long term goals.

2. Customers who tolerate my mistakes because they appreciate the overall value I bring to the relationship.

3. Customers who demand a high level of value and expect results.

4. Customers who appreciate me and what I bring to them and to their business.

5. Future and current customers who ask me the tough questions I need to answer in order to be better at what I do.

6. Future and current customers who share the gory details of their business and themselves because the love and concern they have for their business exceeds their pride or arrogance of self.

7. The internet – instant knowledge, amazing connections, unlimited potential.

8. Florida – a place that seems to welcome business and entrepreneurs – at least I feel that way.

9. My laptop.

10. My new office – finally a place to call my own.

11. This time, right now, right here is the most amazing time to be alive – we have so many opportunities, so much going for us…I am thankful to have the chance to do what I want to do, to give what I want to give, and to share what I want to share.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando,FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Herding Cats, Six Year Old Boys, and Customers.

Todd's Blog — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:24:00 GMT

Jackson is my extremely active and excitable six year old son and I have the privilege of coaching his flag football team. During practice lastnight (after which I usually need to go home and have a stiff drink) I realized that these amazing and wonderful boys were a lot like customers in more ways than I could have imagined.

The boys know exactly what they want and do not care what you want. They want immediate rewards through playing and joking with the otherboys. Their reward is instant gratification -- right now is what matters. They are not worried about the game Friday night or in improving their skills for some future team they may play on. It’s all about right now.

My agenda is not their agenda. As the coach I take the long view. I want to help them establish discipline, skill development, teamwork, and learning to enjoy the process of working hard and becoming successful.

It is very hard to get the boys to listen. Yelling at them not only does not work but annoys them and causes them to tune me out. It is hard for them to concentrate and to hear what you are saying amid all of the distractions around them.

The boys struggle with seeing the big picture and understanding their place on the field. They are in their own little world until something jolts them into consciousness of the greater game around them.

The boys have a hard time realizing the value coaches bring to the team. Why would they listen to me when they can have fun with their buddies? They also have a hard time seeing how they bring value to the team and how if they all work together they can accomplish a much larger goal.

Eventually these wonderful boys will mature and understand long term thinking, goal oriented action, discipline, teamwork, and self esteem rooted in accomplishment. My job is to help them a little bit along that road while having a lot of fun.

Your customers are proceeding along various paths – are you helping them at each stage and bringing the expertise to move their team forward?

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando,FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

7 Ways to Hear You What Your Customers Are Saying

Todd's Blog — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:02:00 GMT

Everyone wants to grow their top line, right? How many of you are talking to your customers on a regular basis? I mean really talking to them. Here are 7 ways to hear what they are saying.

1. Check out their posts on various social media. Oh, your customers are not participating on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, blogs, of any one of the other social media outlets -- wrong, they are using it; you are not putting in the effort to find them.

2. Offer a forum for them to talk to you on their terms. See above.

3. Give value through webinars or other online vehicles and ask them for feedback.

4. Call them and ask them about their business and listen– not try to sell them something. Make a plan and have a series of questions ready to ask. Find out how they are changing their buying processes to deal with changes in technology and economic conditions.

5. Read everything online about them. I am shocked at how few companies study their clients in depth and with regularity. Take them for granted at great peril.

6. Bring them into your planning process and let them tell you what they think or you product development or latest service offering BEFORE you try to sell it to them.

7. Show up on their doorstep (or at least meet them at trade shows or industry conferences – this may be the best reason to attend a show) and ask them to tell you how you are doing. I know this is time consuming and expensive but so is new customer acquisition. Don’t ever lose face-to-face touch with your customers.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando,FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

So You Want To Grow Your Business

Todd's Blog — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:38:00 GMT

Everyone I talk to wants to grow their business. After all the cost cutting, and layoffs, and efficiency initiatives people are left with a core team and not enough sales.

Our business is to help companies grow top line revenue – hence the name Top Line Results.

Here is a 1st principle or process step or whatever word you want to call it ---- call your prospects back right now! If you refuse to do this basic thing right why do you think you will ever grow your business.

How many of us call every single person that called us back before the end of the day?

Do you respond to every e-mail before the end of the day? At least with a note saying ‘I received your message and will do whatever by a certain time?

Do you go to trade shows and wait for weeks to call back the people you met at the booth?

If you meet someone new that could be a good networking contract do you respond with something of value immediately?

I recently met a potential networking partner for my business and at the conclusion of our 1^st meeting he left saying that he had to attend another meeting. Yet I received a follow up e-mail that was both personal and full of additional value within 10 minutes of the end of our meeting.

On the other end of the spectrum we are trying to look at a new house and of course called the realtor for an appointment to visit. She said we would arrange a meeting for the next day and that she would call with a firm time. Did she call back with a time? No. Did she call back saying she couldn’t get in touch with the owner and would try again tomorrow and that she was sorry for the delay? No. I ended up calling her 3 times and leaving a message. Did she call me back? No.

If you are in the service business you are in the relationship business. I can’t wait to start working with the new business partner and can’t but wonder if this particular realtor and realtors in general should just go away.

Speaking of calling, does a real live person answer your phone? Everyone HATES the automated systems or haven’t you heard because you never asked your customers how they want to communicate with you?

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Your Customers Hate Your Policies

Todd's Blog — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:56:00 GMT

Have you ever flown on Southwest and enjoyed their policy for boarding? Southwest assigns a number to each person boarding A1 through C whatever. They then call passengers by groups A1-A30, A31-A61, B1-B30, and so on. There are no assigned seats so you line up by boarding number and then take whatever seat that you want when you get on the plane.

It never fails that I see people with a higher numbered boarding pass trying to board early and then wander around with a confused look on their faces when the ticket taker tells them to wait for their group to board. Others say that they are with so and so and want to sit next to them so they ask to board with the one with the earlier boarding number.

Personally I do not mind the procedure because I have flown enough that I get priority seating (the only perk on Southwest for flying a lot). Usually I get the exit row so I can use my laptop though I have had people try to save the exit row seats, which is against the policy, forcing me either to take another seat or just take the seat and invoke the ‘no saving seats’ policy. Not a great choice for me as the consumer.

Who is the policy aimed at helping, customers or gate agents? Does this policy maximize revenue for Southwest and if so at what cost? Do they lose customers due to the unique boarding procedure? I have heard businesspeople complain about it.

Challenge any of your customer facing policies and if they maximize your revenue then at least explain in a customer oriented way WHY it is a good policy for them.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando,FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

The Best Salesman I Ever Knew

Todd's Blog — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:34:00 GMT

My 1^st sales mentor, who sadly recently passed away (here’s one for you Dennis) was a salesman through and through. He didn’t need the internet or Powerpoint to make his case to a customer. He created an environment where people trusted him to have their best interests at heart. In the end he acted in such a way that all of his customers knew that he would never let them down or make them look bad for buying from his company.

He understood them first. He delivered value to them way before they ever spent a penny. He knew their company better than they did and the decision makers he knew even better. He knew his market and exactly what it was that they needed at the right time at the right price with the right specifications and presented it in the right way.

As a young sales engineer I accompanied Dennis to a Ford plant for a vendor meeting. The plant manager was a loud obnoxious and quite a profane guy that had 5,000 people working for him and 50,000 parts to put together correctly once a minute for 3 shifts, 5 days a week. I understood why he would use language and intimidation to get what he absolutely had to have out of the key vendors for his cars.

This manager would walk around the plant with about 50 people in tow and would verbally assault anyone that didn’t know their stuff and have the answers exactly when he wanted them when he wanted them. These people would wait nervously for their turn in the box while Dennis and I stood by, quietly smoking cigarettes, on the edge of the group (this was in the late 80’s so smoking was still very much ok in Detroit).

Eventually the plant manager got to us and I waited for the barrage to begin…..what we got from the plant manager was “Hey, Dennis, how you doin’?” and he walked away. Dennis gave me his great smile and I knew that he had figured out what the issues were ahead of time and made sure that the plant manager knew that the solutions were in place and that he had nothing to worry about.

Dennis knew his market, listened to them, delivered the value they wanted, how and when they wanted it, always. There are very few salespeople that can say they can do that.

I miss you Dennis my friend, I have never known a better salesman.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando,FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Market Driven, Sales Driven, or Driven Insane?

Todd's Blog — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:20:00 GMT

Nothing happens until something gets sold. An old cliché quote I have heard many times, mostly from salespeople complaining about not getting their just due from senior management. Do you believe this? I used to as a salesperson. I thought sales made the world go round. Nothing happens without us right?

Wrong. EVERYTHING happens before something gets sold.

That everything is your market. Your market existed before you and I promise you that if you went away they would still exist. Their needs, desires, wants, and community exist outside of you for the most part because you still look at them as a sale to be made. What they want is to be engaged, understood, and then they will buy from you.

Making sales gets harder every day. Creating demand through focused value delivery, constructive engagement, and actually understanding their business and how you can help them deliver results that they need will help convince them to buy from you.

Some salespeople will say that nothing happens internally until they sell something (budding narcissist) and for sales driven companies this may be true. It is also a recipe for mediocrity and lagging top line results. If a sale has to happen 1^st then where is the empathy for the customer when the product is designed, the feature set chosen, software configured, costing optimized, pricing set, etc… If you are waiting for a sale to happen before you engage, understand, and earn the trust of your market then you are in big trouble.

If you wonder if you are market driven or sales driven ask yourself this simple question:

Have you EVER walked away from an order or project that was outside your area of focus?

If you have then you at least have an area of focus and exercised judgment as to the best use of your resources. I am not talking about the off the wall project or ultra-custom job. I mean something you have never done before but ‘close enough’ to what you are really good at. Or in an industry you have never considered but said, “Sure we can do that”. I am talking about the ones that your sales guys sell in spite of being told not to and you STILL take the job.

You know the salesmen I am talking about – this is the one that says, “I would rather ask for forgiveness than for permission”. Forgive me, but you have my permission to leave. These guys are selfish and not good business people.

Market focus and segmenting is pretty basic marketing strategy. Yet very few companies have the discipline to make the commitment to a target and drive deep to deliver maximum value. They would rather keep their options open or be flexible or serve a broad spectrum of clients. Maybe this works for the largest companies in your industry but for most it is a formula for stagnation. Oh, by the way, I’ll bet the best companies in your industry started by servicing one or two markets extremely well and then used that success as a springboard to dominate other market segments.

How about developing strategic relationships with companies in your market space but that do not necessarily service your target markets and give them the projects that come across your plate but are outside of your area of focus? Trade these ‘leads’ for contacts or referrals in the areas where you are great. You could also develop lead sharing or referral agreements with companies that are complimentary to your focus.

Focus on being market driven not sales driven and you will avoid being driven insane and out of business.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando,FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Think of Everything: Know the answers to the questions the customer will ask before they ask you.

Todd's Blog — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:41:00 GMT

When I saw this on the quirky blog Soberin a Nightclub it made me laugh out loud and it illustrates a very important point.

Empathy is the root of all success. Pay your prospective customers the respect of being prepared.

Customers only care about their problems and you better know how to relate your offering to their specific need. Just selling a general use tool and hoping that your target customers can figure out how to use it is a recipe for mediocrity.

A call center I inherited would call targets and ask if they had any need for a laser. As you might expect the response rate was very low since many targets did not see any need for a laser (insert your product here).

When the questions changed to a needs focus the results improved significantly. The call center started to ask if the target used any labeling or identification for their parts or if they did any engraving. Once the target answered ‘yes’ then the call center could show how a laser would potentially solve those and other problems. Pretty basic stuff though I am still surprised at how common this type of thinking is.

Are you really putting yourself in your target customer’s shoes and understanding their issues BEFORE you engage them and try to sell them?

How about service? Is your service team completely prepared to react in a proactive and exceptional way to any questions your customer answers? This should be easy – you are the expert, right?

If you understand them 1^st you will not have to sell them - they will want to buy. They expect you to think of everything so they do not have to.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Only a Fool Gives Something Away For Free, Right?

Todd's Blog — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:55:00 GMT

Just finished the book ‘Free’ by Chris Anderson... got it free from the library. Lots of great ideas and analysis that are relevant to every profession and industry in today's ever changing digital world.

A few key points….

The price of commodities comes down over time. If your prices are coming down, your products are moving toward commodity status. As well as toward irrelevance.

Scarce resource prices stay high and earn higher margins. So what are you doing that is ‘scarce’?

Is it service that is so good it stuns your customers?

Is it just being so friendly, considerate, responsive, and polite that people want to buy from you?

Is it bringing your customers in house and letting them help design and engineer your product?

Is it education about how to use a product and not just talking about features and specifications?

How about an expert analysis of their competitive situation? Are you expert enough to do one?

Are you showing your customers the opportunities they will take advantage of if they work with you and your product or service? Are there any real opportunities for your customers if they work with you or are they just a transaction to you?

It is easy to copy; it is much harder to create something that is scarce and valued as such.

Customers want these things for free now before they consider paying you.

Think about the value you get from Google and yet you have never given them a penny. Now you know why people want things for free.

Like the song says, “Free your mind and the rest will follow”

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

What is Marketing?

Todd's Blog — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:06:00 GMT

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself." - Peter F. Drucker

Marketing is as simple as Drucker says it is -- know and understand first, then communicate. If the knowing and understanding are right, the customer sees himself in the product and will not need to be sold but will want to buy.

Marketing is not a tactic, not a trade show, or ad, or web site, or article. These things are tools used by marketing professionals to communicate the deeper message of your product, the meaning of your answer, the results customers should expect, or the solution they seek. If the knowing and understanding are not there then the tactics will fall flat.

Think New Coke.

So many people I talk to want to go straight to the tools and tactics. They want to know how to use Twitter, or should they blog, or should they go to this trade show. Marketing has been described by marketing people as a tactic for so long and so often they have forfeited their seat at the strategic planning table. It is just a tactic to be used, cynically in many cases, to lure people in. No value has been created from the customer's perspective so they try to make it up on the back end with slick 'marketing'.

When companies leave the strategy to the engineers, or to design or heaven help us, to the financial guys, you get a product in search of a customer. Maybe the customer shows up, maybe not.

Great marketing is both the foundation and the energy behind the growth of great products and great companies.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

11 Ways to Know if Your Company is Marketing Passively

Todd's Blog — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:10:00 GMT

You are marketing passively if….

1. Your web site has product info only, has a list of trade shows you went to in 2007, or anything else that is not real fresh, interesting, and new.

2. You go to the same trades hows every year and employ the “build it and they will come” or the “oh, please stop by my booth begging/luck/hope strategy”.

3. You send e-mail to the same few hundred people with no response and no idea if these people are still alive and then hope someone bites.

4. You run the same feature laden ad in the same trade journals and hope someone calls all the while complaining about ad rates and hearing editors tell you that the ads drive people to your web site.

5. You send outfeature/product based press releases – just once I would like to see someone lead with the ultimate benefit the customer receives– then talk about how you do it.

6. You join a trade group with all of your competitors but not one your customers are in - as my favorite announcer Myron Cope (you Steeler fans know) used to say, “Double Yoi”.

7. Your local or regional salespeople (and VP’s and managers) are not known in your field and never join local groups and network as the experts– you can usually recognize these guys by the “I just need more leads and I’ll meet quota” whine.

8. You do not know theblogs that are talking about your company, product type, service, industry, etc…muchless write one or at least write comments.

9. You send out your salespeople and have them mindlessly chase what is “hot” – the “if the phone rang then it must be hot syndrome”.

10. Your salespeople cherry pick what is at the bottom of the pipeline about ready to close yet never generate one lead or referral themselves.

11. Your service team waits for the customer to call with a complaint and never proactively calls them to offer ways for them maximize the benefit and value they get from your product.

There are many more but you get the idea.

ToddHockenberry

Top LineResults - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

10 Reasons Ads Are Dead

Todd's Blog — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:58:00 GMT

We are immune to advertising. Sorry folks but it doesn’t work anymore. It hasn’t worked well for a while and the future looks worse.

How do I know this, let me give you 10 reasons why….

1. My kids NEVER watch commercial television. They only watch shows on the DVR and always skip all of the commercials. They, and anyone under 30, will NEVER, EVER pay attention to ads.

2. We can get all of our product information on demand exactly how we want it with RSS, custom home pages, Google Alerts, and on and on….

3. Most ads are terrible and have no message for the reader/viewer/your potential customer so readers/viewers/attendees have been ignoring them for some time.

4. An editor of a major industrial magazine told me that the reason to advertise with them was that it drove traffic to your web site – guess what, most customers just skip the whole trade magazine step and go straight to the web sites that are geared toward them and their concerns.

5. Blogs – this is where real, honest, and trusted conversations about most products take place, why get your info from someone obvious biased when you can connect to a community and get the REAL story.

6. Ads are a one way interruption and that is just rude. Let me read the real story, if you have one, unfiltered and unbiased and free of spin and puffery (I love that word).

7. Did I mention that most industrial ads are boring, unimaginative, unhelpful and a ridiculous waste of the reader’s time?

8. They are static and become obsolete very quickly.

9. The only reason to pay for an ad placement is viewers or more accurately the POTENTIAL for viewers. Less and less people are subscribing to magazines and I believe the ones that still do subscribe do not spend as much time reading….so less eyeballs. Same holds true for trade shows where attendance keeps shrinking.

10. We know you have your best interests at heart and not ours, until convinced otherwise and ads are not convincing.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Help your customers sell more of their products – what a concept.

Todd's Blog — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:27:00 GMT

While relaxing the other night watching some shows on the DVR this line popped out at me because it was so crisp and clear and summarized much of what I believe to be the best part of marketing and sales.

“I sell products, not advertising.” said Don Draper the Creative Director for the fictional advertising agency Sterling-Cooper on the show Mad Men.

Sounds so simple. Of course that is what he does.

He sells the benefit of the benefit. His highly creative ads help to sell his customer’s products, period.

He knows who he is and what he does and can say it with clarity and simplicity.

In the end isn’t that what we all do – though with just about all of the capital equipment companies that I have worked with and for the answer was more like this;

We design great______.

We engineer the best _______.

We make world class _______.

Our feature/model/product is the first/fastest/smallest/biggest ----whatever!

If you can clearly and simply say how you help your customers sell more of their products then you are way ahead of most and well on your way to earning their business and loyalty.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Proactive Marketing and the “The Long Tail”

Todd's Blog — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 23:31:00 GMT

I just finished reading "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson and was fascinated and impressed by how well this book describes many of the changes we see in the distribution of entertainment, books, and a growing variety of consumer goods and services.

The ‘Long Tail’ refers to the shift from large one size-fits-all mass markets to one where there are many niche products and specialized offerings. We see this effect at work most evidently in places like the traditional brick-n-mortar book store versus Amazon in terms of number and type of books offered for sale.

As Amazon and others have proven emphatically is that there is a whole lot of money in the Long Tail.

Below chart is from The Long Tail Blog by Chris Anderson.

The question I kept asking myself as I read was how does this theory apply to proactive marketing and capital equipment companies?

One answer is to offer variety AND a way for your customers to sort through the choices to make a great decision. Create solution platforms that can be used to address a wide variety of applications (niches along the Long Tail). A core product with lots of options is one popular way of addressing the niche requirements of many customers.

Where I see most manufacturing companies miss here is the second part of my recommendation – making it easy for customers to sort through the choices and understand how the tools apply to their requirements.

Many engineering driven companies will think it is enough to build the tools and options and then let the customer figure out what to do with them. Salespeople in these companies need to be the force that delivers value by helping the customer understand the options and how they can be configured to solve the problems customers face.

Capital equipment companies must also find their niche. Very few products are big mass market hits and if you can make a hit, great, but it is better to know your niche and serve it extremely well.

Deliver a high value solution, specific to your target – do not try to be all things to all buyers.

Once you find your niche you need to be where the niche is looking.

They are online, I promise.

Give away the knowledge of the uses of your products. Become the expert online, be findable online, and share this information for free. Help customers understand your solutions and filter through the issues they face to find the best solution for their situation and they will reward you with their loyalty.

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com

Chipotle – Tasty Proactive Marketing

Todd's Blog — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:37:00 GMT

Chipotle – Tasty Proactive Marketing

We love Mexican food and our daughter has food allergies so when a new Chipotle opened in our Orlando, FL neighborhood we were very excited (they have an extensive gluten-free menu). To add to our pleasure we received a coupon for a free burrito in the mail.

Our kids can be a tough to corral during a meal out so we often order take out instead of eating out. My wife saw that Chipotle took orders online so we went to the web site to place our order. What we found was impressive.

Number one, we could order as individuals and not as one giant mixed up order.

Number two, we were told to bypass the in-store line of people ordering and go directly to the register.

So I follow directions, walk up to the register, and before I can open my mouth the young lady says ‘are you Todd here for your pick up?’ Nice.

When I get home we start unloading the bag for the three hungry and loud offspring and guess what is on each item? Our names! This may sound like a small leap in the grand scheme of things but, as my wife will attest, if you have to open each item it is stressful trying to figure out who gets what in the midst of the mayhem that is our dinner table. Nice.

Number three, the next day I get a call from my local Chipotle and they ask me if I was satisfied, if I had any suggestions, and if they would have the pleasure of us coming back. They actually called me to follow up on a $30 meal. I know people that sell systems for tens of thousands of dollars that don’t follow up this well. Very nice.

What do you think, will we eat at our local Chipotle again?

What are you doing to make it this easy and pleasurable to do business with your company?

Is your team anywhere near this proactive?

Todd Hockenberry

Top Line Results - Orlando, FL

www.top-line-results.com

todd@top-line-results.com