Issue 5 | Volume 1
July 2013
The Golden Rule Of Closing The Sale Richard Denny
Key Account Management Antony Michail fgmn
Six Best Practices For Opportunity Management Laura Patterson
Does Your Brand Have GAME? Andrew Vesey
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What Selling Is Really About David Tovey
Greg W. Marshall
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The Evolving Role of Sales
(and Marketing)
Global CMO is the Official Magazine of Global Marketing Network, the Global CMO™ Body The Magazine July 2013 | 1 Global for Marketing Professionals. www.theglobalcmo.com
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Can’t We All Just Get Along? The eternal war between Sales and Marketing comes to a head in this issue of Global CMO - and guess what - it turns out that we’re all on the same side. Spearheaded by a fantastic feature by Greg W. Marshall, we’re on a mission to generate a higher level of understanding between the long time combatants and show how peaceful coexistence is the best path to both stronger Marketing and Sales professions.
Issue 5 | Volume 1
July 2013
The Golden Rule Of Closing The Sale Richard Denny
Key Account Management Antony Michail fgmn
Six Best Practices For Opportunity Management Laura Patterson
If you’re interested in Sales, then you’ll want to check out many of this issues contributors. Their topics range from key account and opportunity managment methods through to selling in it’s purest form. We even have the ‘godfather of salesmanship’ Richard Denny giving us great advice on how to close a sale. Not stopping there - You’ll also want to check out the advanced notice of Global Marketing Network’s two new Global Sales Qualifications, which will soon be available and will be a must for all salespeople who are serious about their craft. Oh - and yes. We do have some Marketing related content too. J There is also a lot of news of GMN’s global happenings as well as more events on the horizon (and I can tell you we have a couple more great events making an appearance next month as well). So make sure you check out this issue cover to cover, and grab a few of the last chance opportunities with a number of our great competitions. So, enjoy this issue. Once you start reading, I’m sure you’ll be ‘Sold’.
Fiona
Fiona Vesey
pgmn
Editor-in-Chief
Does Your Brand Have GAME? Andrew Vesey
Greg W. Marshall:
ggmn
The Evolving Role of Sales
What Selling Is Really About David Tovey
(and Marketing) Global CMO is the Official Magazine of Global Marketing Network, the Global CMO™ Body The Magazine July 2013 | 1 Global for Marketing Professionals. www.theglobalcmo.com
Cover Image: Greg W. Marshall fgmn
Global CMO™ The Magazine Issue 5 | Volume 1 | July 2013 www.theglobalcmo.com The official Magazine of Global Marketing Network, the Global Body for Marketing Professionals.
Advertising and Sponsorship: sales@theglobalcmo.com Click here to view media pack and rate card Production: production@theglobalcmo.com Editorial: editorial@theglobalcmo.com Editorial Board: Editor-in-Chief | Fiona Vesey GMN CPD Director | David Hood GMN Global Faculty | Professor Greg Marshall GMN South Africa | Dr Anthony Michail GMN Global Advisory Council | MaryLee Sachs GMN Global Faculty | Professor Michael Solomon GMN Brand Guardian | Andrew Vesey
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July 2013 | 5
Inside This Issue Cover Story 34. The Evolving Role Of Sales (And Marketing) Greg W. Marshall fgmn
Features 10.
50.
The Golden Rule Of Closing The Sale
Richard Denny
19.
Key Account Management
Maximising Profitability Of Existing Accounts Antony Michail fgmn
Marketing Leaders Of Tomorrow
56.
28.
Six Best Practices For Opportunity Management
Write For Global CMO, Get Published And WIN!!
What Selling Is Really About
Laura Patterson
David Tovey
32.
70. What Makes A Great Sales Manager?
Julia Payne pgmn
Join The South Africa Marketing Professional Study™
55. Global Partnerships
9. Welcome To The Real World GMN’s Global Brand Guardians Explore ‘Real World Brand Management’
Global Marketing Network and The Localisation Institute Join Forces
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58. BizRadio Roundup
GMN To Launch Mauritius Hub
Highlights Of Our Favourite Podcasts
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Daniel Baron goes from strength to strength 6 | July 2013
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The Global Marketing Network Partner Directory
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The Heaven And Hell Of Customer Experience Jonathan Becher Chief Marketing Officer, SAP
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62. The Marketing Manifesto Marketing Recruitment: “A Marketer Is A Terrible Thing To Waste” David J Hood pgnm
68. GMN Fellow Profile Svend Hollensen fgmn
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79. Midnight Worries Walter Spoonbill Of Spoonbill & Coot Answers Your Marketing Midnight Worries.
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Embark on a life-changing and career-enhancing experience These days the choice of MBAs is extensive. As you seek out which MBA is best for you, it is important to choose one that meets not only your professional goals and personal aspirations but one that delivers to you as an individual. It’s not just about what the MBA can bring to your career, it is about the new thinking and skills that you learn and how they can broaden your horizons. The Henley MBA is an intense and rewarding experience. It is challenging, stimulating and relevant. In many instances it is life-changing. Embark on the Henley MBA and you will encounter an enriching experience that will provide you with new outlooks that will shape your decisions and actions throughout your life. Welcome to the Henley MBA. Your MBA.
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GMN Partner Initiative Welcome To The Real World GMN’s Global Brand Guardians Explore ‘Real World Brand Management’ Here at Global Marketing Network, we are excited to have so many members of our Marketing family involved in initiatives aimed at improving the Marketing Profession at all levels - from global and regional Marketing, the C-Suite, managers, frontline Marketers, through to business owners responsible for Marketing.
GAME is an acronym, representing the four major areas of Real World Brand Management that Andrew and Fiona believe, need to be addressed and in sync to ensure you give your business the best opportunity for growth. These four areas are:
One of these new initiatives is ‘GAME’ Real World Brand Management; the brain-child of our own Global Brand Guardians, Andrew and Fiona Vesey of Vesey Creative.
Making sure you have a solid foundation, you understand ‘who you are’ and have the plans you need in place.
Andrew explains:
Ensuring your Marketing messages and Brand identity are in line with your Brand Values, and that they are as effective as possible.
“Over the years, Brand Management has become a catchall phrase for many things Brand and Marketing related. What seems to have happened over time is companies have tried to create a ‘killer’ Brand to become the next big thing or turn their business around, without taking the time to make sure it is executed properly. While creating a killer Brand is great. If you don’t have the structure, and support systems in place, your business won’t have everything it needs to grow. Or if it does, it will quickly start to cave in on itself. You need to build a solid base, get your Brand up to scratch, implement it and manage it dayto-day, and then focus on how you can make it even better. Business Management focuses on much more than the over-arching strategy and setup of a business. You need to control the day-to-day operations, ensure contingencies are in place, along with quality assurance and monitoring. These requirements are also there when building a successful Brand. Simply put, we want you, as a marketer or business owner, to be able to take what has been devised at a Strategic Marketing/Brand Management level and implement it directly into your business’ everyday operations. Improving time and cost efficiencies, building a stronger Brand and ultimately increasing your Sales and Marketing ROI.”
Growth Readiness:
Authenticity & Strength:
Management & Implementation: Focusing on the day-to-day operations of your Brand and Marketing? Do you have the right systems in place? Can you save money without jeopardising quality? Evaluation & Development: Building long-term success. Finding out what is still working and what is starting to fail, plus what is happening in the marketplace that may be a threat or an opportunity. The team at Vesey Creative are currently conducting a series of case studies with companies in a variety of sizes and industries. Some of which will appear in Andrew and Fiona’s upcoming book (to be published 2014) ‘The Brand GAME. Business Growth Through Real World Brand Management’. Their plans for this initiative far exceed the book alone, and we will keep you abreast with GAME updates when they come to hand. In the mean time, it you would like to find out how your business could be involved in a case study, please email Andrew at gamereport@veseycreative.com. Does your business have GAME?
Global CMO™ The Magazine
July 2013 | 9
The Golden Rule Of Closing The Sale Richard Denny
Once you have asked any form of closing question to conclude your business discussions, shut up. There is not a star salesperson in the world who will disagree with this. The salespeople in the 80 per cent category, when they do actually get around to asking for the business, all too often start talking again. I remember explaining this technique to my eldest son, Lyster, when he was 16 years of age. He had advertised, in our local newspaper, a music centre that he wished to sell. When the first person arrived he made his presentation and he showed how the equipment worked. The prospect 10 | July 2013
then, quite naturally, asked the price (the greatest buying signal of all). Lyster gave the price. Then he shut up. The prospect stood on one leg and then on the other. He lifted the lid, and put it back down again. He turned the knobs, looked round the back and underneath. Neither said a word for at least two minutes, which seemed like three hours to Lyster. Finally the customer said, ‘I’ll take it.’ Many sellers cannot bear what they perceive as the pressure of the silence even though the only person suffering the pressure is the seller. It is quite uncanny – the longer the silence, the more certain the reply is to be ‘Yes’.
Global CMO™ The Magazine
You see, closing the sale starts right at the very beginning, with those first few words at that first all-important meeting. Closing the sale is not what the salesperson does after the presentation. It is not just a question of putting together a sequence of words to corner the prospect. Closing the sale is the whole of the process. It is the presentation, the communication, the seller–prospect empathy; it is following all the basic rules.
The Buck Passer
We saw in the last chapter the basic structure of the sales presentation. Now, obviously, a salesperson in a retail outlet, say, is not necessarily going to follow all those stages. A salesperson calling on a prospect in a busy store will not necessarily pull out a pad of paper and go into a detailed needs analysis or research, for instance. But the principles are the same, even though they can be adapted or adjusted. Closing the sale, however, is a must in all selling environments.
If you establish that the person you are speaking to does not have the authority to make the decision, it is necessary to close from the point of view that he really does want what you are selling: ‘Just supposing that your board of directors likes what I am offering, will you agree that we should proceed?’ Or, ‘Just supposing, Mr Prospect, that they say “Yes”, will you agree to that decision?’
So how should the professional salesperson ask for the business? It should, of course, be automatic if the classic presentation has been followed. Having checked that the prospect is happy with what has been offered, one of the three closes can be used: ‘Fine, let’s complete the paperwork’; ‘Let’s do the cheque now.’ The choice close: ‘Do you prefer to pay by card or cash?’; ‘Do you want red or green?’; ‘Do you want 12 or 13?’ The minor point close: ‘Will you be requiring 10 extra handbooks to go with your course, or 12?’; ‘Do you want metallic paint on the car?’; ‘Would you like a set of shoe trees to go with your shoes?’ This is very simple and basic common sense. Isn’t it extra ordinary how effective the simple systems can be? You see, if you keep to the rules of selling, the close becomes entirely automatic. You don’t need some strong-arm method to corner your prospect into submission. They want to proceed; they are looking forward to taking delivery or commencement of the service; they are relieved that their problem has been solved; they are delighted that at long last a salesperson has had the courtesy and professionalism to do the job correctly.
Difficult Closes Some prospects just cannot or will not make a decision. Some will procrastinate. Others hope the decision will be made by somebody else. Others actually fear making buying decisions. So let’s now look at one or two ideas for handling people in those situations. Remember the words of Heinz Goldman, one of the all-time greats of sales training: ‘The star salesman does what the others don’t do.’
First, you must be absolutely sure that this character does have the authority to make the decision. You should establish this clearly at the questioning stage of the presentation, by asking, ‘Would there be anybody else, Mr Prospect, who might be involved in making the decision to purchase, own or invest?’
If your prospect now replies in the affirmative, you should make your presentation to those who have the authority to make the decision. I always say something along these lines: ‘Fine. Well, it’s obviously in both our interests for me to meet them as I am sure that you would not want anybody else presenting your product or service for you. And anyhow, they may have worries or questions that only I could answer. So let’s fix a meeting right now, and save a lot of your time.’ Or, ‘It would seem sensible for me to meet up with your Mrs Jones and discuss our products with her as well. This will save a lot of your time. I can also answer any questions that she may have, and I’ll be only too pleased to do it for you. Let’s fix up the time now and make a firm appointment.’
The Procrastinators These are the prospects who just cannot make up their minds. They really want it, they know it’s right, you have satisfied all their worries, but you are still unable to close the sale. Try this: ‘Mr Prospect, from everything that we have discussed, you know it’s right. If you make the decision I will give you the security and total protection of your investment. Let me give you a written undertaking. First, if the price goes up during the next 30 days, you will still be able to purchase at the old price. Second, if the price goes down during the next 30 days, you will have it at the lower price. Third, you will have the right to cancel at any time during the next four days.’
The Deferred Decision This refers to prospects who say, ‘We will be making the decision in a week’s... a month’s... six months’ time.’ Try this: ‘May I ask you what your decision will be dependent upon?’ Now, obviously, what you say next depends on the reply. But let’s suppose he or she says, ‘We have discussed your proposal, and we will be making the decision at our next management meeting. There is no further information
Global CMO™ The Magazine
July 2013 | 11
we require, as you have already provided that to everybody concerned.’ Take out your diary and ask, ‘Exactly what day is your meeting? What time would you like to see me on that day, or the day after?’ And then make sure that your prospect makes a note of your next meeting in his or her diary.
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Do You Have It In Blue?
Entries close 15th August 2013
This is where the prospect, once you have gone through the whole presentation, raises a previously undiscussed query, such as: ‘Do you have it in blue?’ Professional salespeople, if they know they have got it in blue, will say, ‘Let’s make a note of that,’ and will immediately write it out on the order form. If you are uncertain about your ability to supply to the new specification, say, ‘If I can supply it in blue, will you go ahead?’ The danger here is that you are, of course, deferring the decision.
One entry per Tweet so take part every Monday and Friday!
You will have gathered that the whole purpose of closing the sale is to tie down, to make decisions and be completely in control of the next stage.
Richard Denny
The For And Against Chart
Author, Speaker
In a really desperate situation with a prospect that you have been unable to close, in some instances it may be worth clearly identifying for that person the points for and against. This should be done with integrity and professionalism, bearing in mind that it is the duty of the professional salesperson to help customers make up their minds. So on a sheet of paper, clearly draw up a list of what is for and what is against. This often helps them make a decision. Professional salesmanship is the solving of problems. But you must close the sale, and get decisions to proceed made. Do always remember that when your prospect has made the decision it nearly always comes as a great relief.
Richard Denny is one of the foremost authorities on sales, management training and personal development. A highly sought-after inspirational speaker, he has been sharing his ideas on success and achievement around the world for over 20 years. He is also the author of: • Winning New Business • Motivate to Win • Communicate to Win • Succeed for Yourself • Successful Selling Skills (all published by Kogan Page). His books have sold over a quarter of a million copies worldwide.
Reproduced by kind permission of Kogan Page, from the 25th Anniverary Edition of the Richard Denny title ‘Selling To Win’.
Selling To Win Richard Denny Richard Denny is the ‘godfather of salesmanship’ and Selling to Win has established itself as an international best-seller and classic sales text. One of the world’s most inspirational business speakers, Richard has helped countless thousands of salespeople to become high flyers, and in this bestselling book he explains how to put his winning techniques into action. This 25th anniversary edition of Selling to Win has been fully revised and updated and is packed with even more unbeatable sales tips. You’ll find tried and tested advice on how to: • get a sale when you are not the cheapest; • beat the competition; • turn your customer into an ambassador; • build a positive attitude that gets results; • close a sale. Recognized worldwide as one of the most effective and powerful salesimprovement guides ever written, Selling to Win is the salesperson’s bible. 12 | July 2013
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The Heaven And Hell Of Customer Experience Jonathan Becher
Comedian Richard Lewis claims to have coined the “_______ from hell” phrase, but Carnival Cruise Lines has lived it. In 2012, Carnival spent $61 million advertising its “fun ship” brand positioning. But by the end of last year, #cruisefromhell was trending on Twitter after one of Carnival’s ships had an on-board fire that left passengers stranded for five days without fresh food, air conditioning or working toilets. Of course, social media is just one channel among many that affect the overall perception and experience of a brand. The challenge is that each of these channels, from the in-person experience to the website to the call centre to post-sales support, are usually developed and managed independently – and often by different groups within the organization. Given the way business units and functional groups are organized and measured inside companies today, most care only about the slice of the experience they’re directly involved with. That’s why marketing needs to become a champion for the customer experience across all channels. Ensuring that every part of the organization delivers on the brand promise is one of five key responsibilities that we as CMOs must take on to be successful. How do we do this? Here are four ways. 16 | July 2013
Offer Counsel Rather Than Direct Management Marketing can’t own all the customer experience channels, but it can help make the experience consistent. At SAP, we know that if we invite a group of executives to one of our briefing centres for a day of meetings, we are obligated to deliver a consistent experience – from the messaging on the invitation to the car ride in from the airport, and everything else until they’re back in the airport to go home. Marketing doesn’t manage the briefing centres, but we provide counsel to the facilities managers and the sales teams that run the meetings to help them understand the story they want to tell (ours is “Run Better”) and provide them with the right assets to help them tell the story.
Use Data To Elevate The Customer Experience Without good data it becomes more difficult to consistently improve the customer experience. It’s not enough to have surveys and anecdotal feedback from customers; you must analyse their entire experience over time. For example, last year British Airways created a data warehouse that
Global CMO™ The Magazine
A View From The C-Suite
Jonathan Becher Chief Marking Officer, SAP As the Chief Marketing Officer of SAP, Jonathan oversees the development and execution of marketing strategy across the globe. He champions SAP’s focus on customers and world-class innovations, while continuing Marketing’s focus on building the SAP brand. Jonathan is an active participant in social media, author of the popular blog Managing By Walking Around, a frequent speaker at industry events, and a published author on multiple subjects. He is a board member for the Churchill Club, Silicon Valley’s premier business and technology forum, and Revel Systems, an iPad point of sale solution.
collects information from every experience a customer has – online, at an airport, in flight – and makes it accessible to customer-facing personnel. The airline equipped customerservice personnel and flight crews with iPads so they can recognize VIP travellers and personalize their experience based on past data. “We are looking at the whole journey, from booking to collecting luggage at the carousel,” said Jo Boswell, head of customer analysis at British Airways.
Enlist experience champions Carnival’s one saving grace during the Triumph’s troubles at sea was the work of its on-board crew, which maintained a positive attitude and even organized comedy shows and other activities to keep the passengers occupied. “The crew was always smiling,” one passenger told USA Today. “They need a huge raise.” Such praise underscores the importance of training and education to help all employees support the brand experience with customers. Since then, the industry has been plagued by a series of incidents, most recently the Royal Caribbean ship that caught fire on May 27. While companies have traditionally responded to negative events by lowering fares, this most recent incident has sparked a need for a passenger bill of rights. It will be vital to the industry’s future that they take a longer term view with the customer experience at the centre.
Calculate the cost of not improving the experience In The Customer Experience Edge, authors Reza Soudagar, Vinay Iyer, and Volker G. Hildebrand (disclosure: all SAP executives) explain the central paradox of customer experience: Companies want to do right by their customers, but some efforts may be seen as too much of a drain on revenues and profits. One way to get clarity is to compare the current experience with the cost of not improving it. The authors offer an example: “Let’s say you’re a company with 500,000 customers, and the average lifetime value of your customers is $1,000. … Then, let’s say you force customers to use a self-service capability … and [they] hate it. What is the revenue impact if, as a result, your retention rate decreases by 1 percent? That’s 5,000 lost customers, or $5 million in lost business.” Clearly, the cost of doing nothing to improve the customer experience can be significant. How are you helping foster a better customer experience across your company?
Global CMO™ The Magazine
July 2013 | 17
THE OXFORD BROOKES MBA
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Combining academic rigour with professional executive development, taught by leading academics with extensive business experience, our MBA is based upon four key attributes: connectivity, collaboration, creativity and commercial practice. Available on-campus and online, or in combination, our renowned programme is adaptable enough to accommodate your working life. Individual careers coaching ensures that you gain full value from your investment in the Oxford Brookes MBA. Find out more:
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Marketing Leaders Of Tomorrow
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You Could Be Published & Win!! Submit your original piece (Max 500 words) on the following topic, by 1.00pm (GMT), 30th December 2013, via the entry form at: www.theglobalcmo.com/leaders-of-tomorrow/
“Given your understanding of the challenges faced by organisations, what are the qualities required to be a Marketing Leader of today?“ • All qualifying entrants will receive a complimentary 1 Year GMN Student Membership • Three shortlisted entrants shall be profiled in the February 2014 issue of Global CMO. They shall also each receive a collection of the latest marketing and business books to help them be a Leader of Tomorrow. • The winner (as well as Silver and Bronze awards) will be be announced in the March issue of Global CMO. • The winners piece will be Published in March’s issue of Global CMO and posted online • They will receive a complementary ticket to a 2014 Global CMO Masterclass of their choice • Plus the opportunity to write a Cover Feature Article for Global CMO The Magazine in 2014 • The winner will also receive a Years Mentoring from one of our highly respected GMN Fellows • Plus the winning entrant shall secure Annual Academic Membership for their University
Deadline For Submissions Extended To 30th December 2013 Entry Requirements, Judging Criteria and Methodology, Terms and Conditions can be viewed at www.theglobalcmo.com/leaders-of-tomorrow/
Global CMO™ The Magazine
July 2013 | 19
Global Growth
Port Louis, Mauritius
GMN To Launch Mauritius Hub GMN is delighted to announce that plans are now underway to launch its Mauritius hub on 5 September. Mauritius is one of Africa's most stable and prosperous countries, with the economy projected to grow by a further 3.3% this year. GMN has already secured the support of leading business leaders in Mauritius, including Kerima Rawat, founder of leading Learning and Development Centre, Centosis and daughter of Dawood Rawat, Emeritus Chairman of British American Investments, Mauritius’ rapidly expanding USD 500 million turnover Group. GMN is delighted that Mrs Rawat has accepted the position of GMN Mauritius President, which will be formalised at the launch event.
The launch event will feature a reception with business leaders and government officials followed by a one day conference featuring a number of GMN Global Faculty members. Says Nasser Jamalkhan, GMN Mauritius Country Director. “Mauritus is expanding rapidly and has a determined commitment to building marketing and sales capabilities within its workforce. We are looking forward to working with Centosis, our other global partners and Global Faculty to launch GMN Mauritius, to build a dynamic marketing community and to bring worldleading marketing practices to the country and the region.”
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Get the execution right and you can dominate your market.
Does Your Brand Have GAME? Andrew Vesey ggmn
It’s a very common occurrence for a business to feel the need to up their marketing/advertising spend or completely re-Brand because they aren’t getting the results they are looking. From my 15 years in the Design and Brand, I can confidently tell you that a heavy majority (let’s call it 80% as the 80/20 rule seems to work everywhere) are doing themselves a disservice by following this route. It doesn’t matter how much more you spend on Marketing or how many times you re-Brand. If you’re not executing it properly to begin with, you’ll just end up in the same place again. 22 | July 2013
So, how to you tighten up your execution before you take the long (and expensive) re-Branding and Marketing spend road? It’s as simple as ABC... sorry... I mean GAME
G is for Growth Readiness Quite simply, Growth Readiness is setting a solid foundation to initiate your business growth from. In order to be successful in business, you need to know where you are, where you want to go, and how you plan
Global CMO™ The Magazine
The Brand GAME
on getting there. The same is true with your Brand and Marketing. Running blind will get you somewhere, but you’ll have no idea where that is until you get there. And let’s face it, 99 times out of 100, it’s somewhere you don’t want to be.
relatable manner. The most successful Brands always do BOTH of these things well.
GAME divides Growth Readiness into three notable areas:
You know who you are. Now it’s time to tell the world.
A Solid Cornerstone Your Brand and your business are intertwined on every level, so before doing anything else you need to understand your business properly. Understanding your business at a base level (Target Market, your SWOT, business goals, your product/service and how you actually operate) will give you some key insights for the other areas of GAME. It will also allow you to fix any minor ‘business issues’ before they turn into ‘Brand issues’. Defining Your Core Brand Before you can create a great Brand or deliver effective Marketing campaigns, you first need to define your core Brand. What Values does it stand for? What promises does it make? Just as important as defining your Brand, you need to make sure your team (internal and external) understand what it is all about - and buy into it. This ensures everyone is working towards the same goal. If some of your team don’t know where the goal posts are, it makes it difficult for them to do their jobs efficiently. Brand/Marketing Game Plan As the old saying goes - Failing to plan, is planning to fail. Planning ahead for your Brand and Marketing spend and campaigns can pay off big time. Through game planning, you can improve the efficiency and returns of your Marketing, control your costs more effectively, as well as position yourself to take advantage of other opportunities that may arise in the future. Remember - more isn’t always better – it’s about being as effective as you can be with what you have.
A is for Authenticity & Strength Knowing your values, your vision and goals is one thing, presenting them well is another. It starts with getting your messaging right, building rapport with potential customers and understanding what makes the consumer tick. Then you need to present your messaging and visual identity in a clear, concise and
The three sections for this area of GAME are: Keeping It Real With Growth Readiness, we made sure your core Brand was defined and understood. Now is the time to convey those messages to your target audience. Getting these messages across effectively is an important part of building your Brand. When you don’t get it right, people will know. They may not know why, but they know something isn’t kosher. Clear effective communication is key. Brand Etiquette It’s not just what you say – it’s how you say it. Building rapport with potential customers is all about doing the right things, as opposed to saying the right things. Choosing the right tone of voice, the correct Marketing mediums, through to whether you use a giveaway as opposed to a discount; these all effect how people will interpret what you say about your Brand and your business. The Face of Your Brand What’s a Brand without a look? Having a consistent and strong visual identity is always key in the Brand discussion, and can be quite a polarising topic. How much do you really need? Is it consistent? Is it appropriate for your audience? Does it align with your values? Visual identity alone, almost certainly won’t give you a successful Brand - but, poorly executed, it can kill it.
M is for Management & Implementation Just like your business itself, you need to be aware of the day-to-day running of your Brand. This is a key area you can make ‘business gains’ in. Poor management and implementation of your Brand and Marketing can lead to costs and man-hours ballooning out of control which can ruin your plans and budgets. It will also greatly reduce the effectiveness of your visual identity and Marketing messages. Correct management and implementation on the other hand, can pay huge dividends. To attract these dividends, GAME breaks it down into these three areas:
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Quality Assurance
Identity Monitoring & Protection
The three most important things to effective Brand Management - Consistency, Consistency, Consistency.
No Brand is an island.
Ensuring a top quality product or service makes for a successful business. The same can be said for your Brand. The larger your Brand presence, the more people involved and/or the more complex your Brand identity, the greater the chances of errors being made that will weaken your Brand’s position. Look to greatly reduce these errors, and fix any issues before they do additional damage.
It is important that you monitor what is happening in the marketplace and protect your Brand’s integrity. Protecting your IP, keeping up with consumer opinions and monitoring your competition, all are important things if you want to truly be successful. So often knowledge of the things you can’t directly control is what separates the winners and losers. Brand Development Programme
Using The Right Tools
The final piece of the puzzle is to ‘rinse and repeat’.
You wouldn’t use a sledgehammer to drill a hole.
Obviously this doesn’t mean it’s time to re-Brand already. What I’m talking about is the need for regular small reviews (the more regular they are, the smaller they can be) to make sure everything is on track and to find new ways to make your business and Brand more successful – i.e.: futureproofing and continued business growth.
Selecting the right tools for the job can give you a major edge. And when I say ‘tools’ I mean staff, suppliers, systems and Marketing materials (and even the materials those ‘materials’ are made from). Do you outsource? Insource? Crowdsource? Getting these things right will help you keep your level of consistency and quality up. Creating the required systems and processes will become easier, and in most cases, there are cost savings to be had. Systemised Branding The larger you get, the more the volume of work will stay the same - If you’re systemised. Once you have your quality assurance in place and have selected the right tools, you can then start to look at options for further systemisation and automation. Digital asset management system? Online Brand Management? A simple spreadsheet? It’s important to work out what’s right for you.
E is for Evaluation & Development Your Brand is a ‘living’ thing. You can’t just implement and forget it. The world and the marketplace are forever changing. Your Brand needs to be aware of this and adapt along the way. In this, the final quarter of GAME, we ensure you have in place the pieces that will allow you to see what is working, what isn’t and keep an eye on future developments. GAME closes out with the following three areas: Marketing Analytics Data is useless… unless you know what pieces are actually important to you. There is an ever-growing multitude of ways to measure the response to your Marketing campaigns, your website effectiveness and consumer response to your Brand. It’s important to not get overwhelmed. Focus on what information is the most relevant to your business and Brand, and use the most cost and time efficient way to get the accurate data you need. 24 | July 2013
Over the coming issues, I will go into a little more detail on different aspects outlined here. Until then... oh... I can’t help myself... - GAME, set and match -
Andrew Vesey
ggmn
Founder | Creative Director, Vesey Creative Andrew is a member of the GMN Global Advisory Council and the Founder and Creator of Global CMO The Magazine and Director of the New Zealand and United Kingdom based Graphic Design and Branding Agency, Vesey Creative - the official Brand Guardians for GMN. Working in partnership with a wide variety of clients around the globe, Andrew’s business experience includes over a dozen years leading design and branding studios and agencies, including the launch of his own agency Vesey Creative over 9 years ago. Andrew is a strong believer in continually upskilling, learning and staying relevant in business. This ‘education brings growth’ mentality lead him to create Brand Quarterly, a not for profit digital magazine for SMEs, and the magazine you are now reading. 2014 will see Andrew’s first book for SMEs published “The Brand GAME - Business Growth Through Real World Brand Management”.
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We are delighted to confirm that the following GMN Faculty Members are confirmed speakers at this prestigious event, sharing their latest research and examples of best practices:
Join GMN At Brand2Global 16-18 September 2013, Doubletree by Hilton Tower of London Hotel, London UK Global Marketing Network is delighted to be endorsing the upcoming Brand2Global Conference taking place in September in London. Featuring presentations from industry experts with global marketing experience the conference presentations are designed to answer a number of key questions facing the global marketer, including: •• What is your brand essence and how can you assure that it is established accurately in each target country? •• What are the best practices for global advertising campaigns that combine a universal message, yet can be easily translated into local campaigns? •• What is the best strategy for international SEO and how can you take advantage of it while building your global brand and campaigns? •• How are social media outlets revolutionizing the way your brand interacts with customers across borders and how can you track and integrate the sentiments of your global customers in an effective manner?
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16th September - Professor Robert Shaw, GMN Programme Director for Marketing Analytics will be delivering a 1-day Global CMO Masterclass, Measuring Marketing Performance. See following page for details. Robert will also be delivering a one hour session on Measuring Marketing Performance on 17th September. 17th September - Dr Markus Pfeiffer, Founder and CEO of Bloom Partners, and GMN Programme Director for Digital Strategy and Innovation will be delivering a one-hour session entitled ‘Winning the Empowered Consumer’, sharing with delegates the results of the “Digital Readiness” Study 2013, providing some deep insights on key success factors for winning in a digital-first era. 18th September – David Haigh, Founder and CEO of Brand Finance plc and GMN Programme Director for Brand Valuation shall be delivering a one hour session on the results of the recent Brand Finance Brand League Tables and what the drivers of success are in building a global brand. NEW SESSION ANNOUNCED 18th September - 21st Century Global CMO for a Globalised and Digitised World
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GMN is delighted that Brendan Dineen, IBM Director of Marketing - Demand Programs in the UK and Ireland will be speaking at this session moderated by GMN Chief Executive Darrell Kofkin. As the former Director of Marketing and Communications for the Chairman of IBM in EMEA and a former CMO for IBM in the UK, Ireland and South Africa, Brendan shall be sharing the results of the most recent IBM Global CMO Study and share his personal insights on what it takes to operate successfully as a Global CMO in the 21st Century, the skills and capabilities required to be a Marketing Leader of today and the challenges of operating in a more globalised, digitised environment.
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Measuring Marketing Performance Masterclass 16th September, 2013 In today’s challenging business environment, Measuring Marketing Performance is “one way direction” for marketers. This highly interactive Masterclass will offer them the latest techniques and tools, in order to use data to make strategic marketing decisions, optimize their brand and marketing strategy and maximize marketing ROI. The Participants will learn: •• how to use data to make better decisions
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•• what data is available and what do you need most •• how make strategic marketing decisions with data •• how to maximise the lifetime value of customers •• how to optimise your brand strategy •• how to optimise the marketing mix: advertising, promotions, pricing, innovation •• how to use econometric models
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Work On Motivation - Not Manipulation
28 | July 2013
Global CMO™ The Magazine
What Selling Is Really About David Tovey
Principle 1 – Selling Is About Motivation Not Manipulation A core Principled Selling behaviour is to be a master of motivation not manipulation. Let’s take a look at why manipulation is not a useful behaviour. Some people do seem to take pride in getting their own way whether their way is good for the other party in a relationship or not; they simply like to be in control. Manipulation is about control, in the worst sense of the word. The definition of manipulation is ‘to control or influence unscrupulously’. I spoke with a successful recruitment consultant at a networking event who told me she was planning to leave her firm because every day her director told the team to keep control of the client relationship. Even when it was obvious that the client was not sure about a candidate or a candidate was unsure about taking up a new role, her director’s mantra about staying in control was interpreted by the team as doing or saying pretty much anything that would result in getting the commission. Relationships don’t work well if either party is constantly working to their own agenda, working in their own interests instead of the interests of the relationship. Most readers will have heard of going for the win-win in any negotiation. It is simply impossible to achieve win-win if one party uses manipulation to achieve their objectives. I feel sure you, like most people, can tell if someone tries to manipulate you. In business, customers will usually be too polite to point out that they feel the seller is being unscrupulous; they just don’t buy. For the few that do buy, buyer’s remorse is more frequent when they discover that they have been manipulated. The definition of selling is the exchange of goods and services for money. Yet when I ask groups I work with at seminars and conferences how they define selling; they often use words like persuade or convince. They say it’s about getting someone to do what you want them to do. Think of how it feels when someone is trying to persuade or convince you of something. Persuasion suggests argument or coercion. It may be OK for the debating chambers of fine universities or between government politicians where rhetoric is valued, but when you want to win long-term relationships with clients it isn’t helpful. Think of the words, tone and body language of someone who is trying to persuade or convince someone. There is a tendency to repeat and reinforce the words and even to get animated. If you don’t see things their way quickly enough, their voice gets louder and their hand gestures and body language can become intimidating. You feel pressured.
CASE STUDY ‘On a plane recently I was trapped next to a machine tool salesman who told me he loved the personal challenge of manipulating customers around to his way of thinking. It made me cringe.’ Chris Stephens, Senior VP Marketing, UK telecoms company
Think of how many times you hear the term pressure selling. In selling situations when an individual feels pressurized their initial response is usually to push back a little. Salespeople call this push back raising objections and as they have heard them all before they have ready answers. Then there are the closing techniques to get you at a moment of weakness when you run out of objections. I have a book on my desk right now that advises salespeople to ‘always be closing’! Anyone who uses pressure, persuasion or convincing to attempt to win business will at best end up with a single transaction. It is not a good foundation for developing longterm profitable relationships with customers. When you think that selling is about controlling or manipulating, all the energy in a relationship will come from you. It will be obvious that the relationship is about what you want, not what the customer wants. Selling like this feels adversarial and is usually not enjoyable or comfortable for either party. As I researched books on selling I found that many still focus on salespeople’s attitudes, how to find pain points and how to use psychological techniques to get others to do what you want. There are so many books, courses and motivational speakers encouraging bad practice that it is no wonder that anyone who needs to win business might feel they have to suspend ethics, integrity and their conscience. If a potential customer identifies bad sales practice at the start of a relationship, they will assume that this behaviour represents what it will be like to do business with a supplier once they become a client.
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July 2013 | 29
FIGURE 1 From prospect to customer
Be A Master Of Motivation
CASE STUDY ‘I only want to spend my time with potential clients who are interested in meeting me and with whom I can build a great working relationship. I personally don’t want to go through the pain of making phone calls to people who just see me as an interruption to their day and want to get me off the phone as quickly as possible. When I call someone, I love the fact that they are expecting my call. It means I never put off making a call to a completely new prospect. When I meet a prospective client it is because they have willingly given up time to explore opportunities for doing business together. It is the most natural thing in the world to have a conversation about business with someone who is motivated to meet with you. If there are genuine opportunities to do business it is the clients’ motivation that will drive the discussions forward. Instead of chasing them they call me, they want to do business, they set the pace. I used to say I could never sell, but I’ve found out it is easier and more enjoyable than I thought.’ Jim Stafford, Forensic Accountant, Edinburgh
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When you are a master of motivation the energy will come from the customer and the whole process of selling becomes a more enjoyable and comfortable experience for seller and buyer. Imagine only ever meeting buyers who are motivated to take a call from you, who look forward to meeting you and who look forward to your proposal or presentation. Imagine a buyer so motivated to buy from you that they give you advice on how best to sell to their company and how to construct your proposal or presentation for maximum effect. That is what happens for Principled Sellers. When you are selling to motivated customers there is no need for manipulation, sales trickery, cold-calling or closing techniques. A motivated client will be enthusiastic about taking action; the energy to move forward will come from them. Your marketing activities motivate a potential customer to want to meet with you and maintaining momentum throughout the business development process will motivate them to buy from you. For most suppliers of a product or service there will be a number of stages to go through before getting a yes. The time taken to move from a marketing approach to getting the yes will be different depending on your product
Global CMO™ The Magazine
Principled Selling How to Win More Business Without Selling Your Soul David Tovey The stereotypical salesperson is pushy, manipulative and persistent. Most people don’t like buying from them - and many salespeople don’t want to be like this - so the traditional hard sell consistently fails to get results. Buyer behaviour has changed and to win new deals salespeople need to respond to the reality of the business environment. Principled Selling gives you that response with a new approach to selling that gets you away from the stereotypes and gets you more sales. This highly effective, principled approach to business development helps you align your sales techniques with the new expectations of customers and clients. It gets people to buy from you again and again and gives you a real opportunity to get ahead of the game. If you’d like to increase your sales without ever having to cold call, this is the book for you.
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25% off all Kogan Page titles* Click here to find out how to redeem your member discount. *Conditions apply. Sorry, not available in USA & Canada
WIN THIS BOOK Simply tweet a #FollowFriday message, recommending these Twitter feeds to your followers: @TheGlobalCMO @GMNhome @KoganPage Entries close 15th August 2013 or service. For some it may be weeks, for others it may be months; if you happen to sell defence systems it may be several years. It is not unusual for professionals in law or accountancy to tell me that it has taken several years to attract their very best clients. If we think of the stages as necessary steps towards winning business, then it is vital that the buyer and seller are on the same step before attempting to move forward. Too often there is a mismatch between where the seller thinks the sale is and where the buyer really is. The seller is asked at the end of a first meeting to put something in writing and may think that the prospect is ready to buy. In reality the prospect may be being polite and is bringing the meeting to a close in what they think is a courteous way. The seller pulls out all the stops to get a proposal out, and when it lands on the prospect’s desk it isn’t opened for days or even weeks. The risk is that the seller starts to follow up too soon, starts to apply what is perceived as pressure and any motivation that might have been present disappears. If you ever feel you are pushing or pulling them up those steps, then you can be sure that you have failed to motivate them. Motivated buyers go hand in hand with you through the business development process. You are always on the same step as each other and always feel comfortable about moving forward together to the next stage. Reproduced by kind permission of Kogan Page, from the David Tovey title ‘Principled Selling’.
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David Tovey Author | Chairman, The Principled Group David Tovey is Chairman of The Principled Group of companies, which includes Questas Consulting, the business growth and sales consultancy. Questas helps clients to grow their businesses profitably by implementing the Principled Selling approach. David has over 20 years of senior management experience and a successful consultancy career. He has helped hundreds of blue chip companies and professional firms around the world to increase top line profitable growth by focusing on principled business development leadership and is a respected writer and speaker on this topic.
image: Cape Town Stadium | iStockPhoto | holgs
Join The South Africa Marketing Professional Study™ Antony Michail
fgmn
It’s Time For Change Traditional marketing as we know it — including media, advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications — has evolved and changed over the past few years at a tremendous rate. Globalisation, technology, the rise of the empowered consumer and the need for marketing professionals to focus more than ever before on demonstrating the ROI they are making are just of the pressures that marketers are facing. All to often many people in traditional marketing roles may not even realise they’re operating within a changing paradigm. And therefore the capabilities they require are constantly changing. Marketers are having a hard time keeping up. Says GMN’s CMO ‘Czar’ MaryLee Sachs, a former US Chairman AND worldwide director of consumer marketing of WPP firm Hill & Knowlton and author of ‘The Changing MO of the CMO’ wrote that “the role of the CMO is probably one of the least understood. Marketing is often seen as a “black box” confused with sales, and which is sometimes viewed as a financial drain on an organisation, funding expensive advertising campaigns, sponsorships and other untold extravagant items. “ Specifically in South Africa, most of the business people define marketing as media, selling or advertising. It is true that these are parts of the marketing and all of us every 32 | July 2013
day are bombarded with TV and radio commercials, emails, sales calls, coupons, and direct mail. But marketing is much more than advertising and selling. In fact marketing comprises of a number of activities which are interlinked and the decision in one area affects the decision in other areas. By its nature, marketing defines how the organisation interacts with its market place. Consequently, all strategic planning, to a greater or lesser degree, requires an element of marketing. Only in this way can organisations become strategically responsive to customer need and commercial pressures. This year Global Marketing Network is establishing the Global Marketing Standards Council to determine the capabilities that Marketing Professionals require at each and every stage of their career, wherever they live and work in the world. Led by myself the first phase of this work now commences with the South Africa Marketing Professional Study™. The Purpose Of The Study Is To: •• identifying the capabilities and standards that the leading Marketing Professionals in South Africa possess and their state of readiness in helping their organisations cope with the challenges facing today’s business;
Global CMO™ The Magazine
GMN Industry Study •• establishing the capabilities and standards that organisations increasingly require from South Africa’s Marketing Professionals;
Global
•• developing the South African Marketing Capabilities Framework which establishes the capabilities and knowledge that South Africa’s Marketing Professionals require in order to deliver increasing value to South African businesses.
Marketing
Network
Haydn Townsend, CEO of Trinergy Brand Connectors welcomes this development. “The marketing model has evolved. Marketing Professionals in South Africa are not only seeking the knowledge to implement the very latest Marketing Practices but are continually seeking stronger representation and the knowledge, insights, inspiration and education they need to help them deliver improvements in Marketing accountability. I wholeheartedly support this initiative and look forward to seeing the results.”
The first phase of the research is now live with the Study being published later this year. You can participate in the Study by completing the questionnaire HERE All qualifying* participants receive a complimentary 6 month GMN Affiliate Membership. For any further information about this initiative please GO HERE ~ CMO *To qualify for your complimentary membership, you must be based in South Africa and be a new GMN member.
Thank You And Congratulations!!
Global
CMO THE MAGAZINE
Thank you to all of our proactive South African Marketers who have pre-registered for the study. It would not be possible without you. And congratulations are in order for Chantal Snel of Johannesburg, who’s pre-registration has WON her a signed copy of ‘The Marketing Manifesto’ by David J Hood and a complimentary ticket to a GMN Global CMO Forum taking place in South Africa later this year.
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The Evolving Role Of Sales (And Marketing) Greg W. Marshall fgmn
Much has been made in the past few years about the “war between sales and marketing,” which depicts the relationship as a sort of “salespeople are from Venus, marketers are from Mars” vibe. Before we go any farther, I believe that a disclosure is in order. During my career I’ve spent about equal time in marketing and in selling/ sales management roles. So I suppose I could be accused of being multi-planetary when it comes to this topic and I would be less than forthcoming if I didn’t admit to being somewhat at war with myself. Put me into a room of sales managers and I’m as empathetic as the day is long to their plight; ask me to lead a session with marketers on how to align the sales force with marketing strategies, I can be equally compassionate about their frustrations. But there actually is an objective reality to optimizing the relationship and I want to use this article to share a few ideas with you about this. To start, I’ll give you the punch line right here in the first paragraph: much of the fuss about sales and marketing being incommensurate business paradigms tends to mask the real point, which is that customers, their expectations,
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and their desired ways of doing business with us are changing rapidly and permanently. That being the case, while mending fences between sales and marketing at the operational level is not a bad idea, the real end game has to take place at the strategic level of the firm to create an overall organisational alignment of people, processes, systems, strategies, and related resources all deployed toward maximizing the customer experience. Hint: this cannot be accomplished without the vision and leadership of the CEO and Board of Directors. In his terrific book Marketing as Strategy, which I’ve used in MBA classes on numerous occasions, Nirmalya Kumar of the London Business School exhorts firms to focus on the big picture of the customer experience and its place in enhancing organisational performance over the long run. In essence, his book is about strategic marketing, which I’ve come to define as a long-term, firm-level commitment to investing in marketing – supported at the
Global CMO™ The Magazine
highest organisation level – for the purpose of enhancing long term organisational performance. But simply defining strategic marketing and successfully integrating it as a core organisational value are two quite different things. Kumar and others that have written on the topic know that it takes consistent commitment and action from the very top to create such an enterprise.
the vision and wherewithal to affect organisational change toward a strategic marketing outlook can easily become sandwiched between the enormous inertia inherent in most sales organisations – largely fed by their performance management systems – and the heavy hand of CEOs and
Unfortunately, in most places marketing as practiced is still painfully tactical in nature – the “sales support” approach to the role. In such cases, CMOs that might have
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BODs to demonstrate ROI on marketing’s contributions. We all know that the CMO is the most turnover-prone member of the C-suite, while CSOs (chief sales officers or equivalent titles) tend to be among the most long-standing executives in the firm. This is primarily because, in firms that are poorly aligned to execute a strategic marketing world view, once it becomes apparent to the CEO that a particular quarter’s sales forecast is in jeopardy, their first instinct metaphorically is to pick up the phone. The answer to the classic question from the Ghostbusters movie and song “Now who ya gonna call?” is pretty obvious – no, not Ghostbusters, but it’s not the CMO either! Of course, it’s the CSO who is called – and usually the CEO picks up the phone and has a conversation with the CSO that goes something like this:
after that call is positive for the long-term success of a firm’s offerings from a strategic marketing point of view. It’s classic long-term brand sub-optimization in favour of shortterm revenue maximization. Naturally, this tendency to be driven purely by quarter-to-quarter revenues to forecasts is at its peak in publicly traded firms, but anyone who has ever worked in a privately held company can tell you that many of them are subject to the same pressures.
CEO: CSO, the Board and I are looking at the numbers for this quarter and we don’t see them coming in by quarter’s end. What can you do for me?
Salespeople Say:
CSO: No problem, CEO – leave it to me. It’s what happens next that can be really scary from a strategic marketing view of the business world. As a whole cornucopia of tactical steps by the sales force begin to fall into place, from price cutting to channel promotions to buynow pay-later schemes to sales contests that encourage loading up customers to making promises to close deals that marketing can’t fulfil, nothing that is about to happen
The Language Of Sales And Marketing Perhaps much can be learned by comparing the way sales and marketing communicate about each other. Here are some juxtaposed statements, taken verbatim from interviews with mid-level sales and marketing managers.
“Marketing people do not spend enough time in the field. They don’t take specific customer complaints seriously enough. Marketing needs to establish a system for better field communications.” Marketers Say: “Salespeople are always asking for information that they have already received. We spend much effort gathering and writing up product and competitive information, send out that information, and salespeople call a week later for the same information….This takes time away from other important tasks we have.” My Take:
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Sales organisations often believe that marketers are out of touch with customers. We’ve probably brought that on ourselves with our emphasis on groups of people (traditional target marketing) – “consumers” – instead of customers. Even the words customer and consumer can be confusing sometimes. In the best firms, everybody in the organisation has customers. Staunch B2B types sometimes argue that the field of consumer marketing has little to offer customer marketing, if the customer is defined as someone purchasing within a channel (i.e., not an enduser consumer). However, I strongly dispute that assertion. Unfortunately, it is correct that marketing often enables a “learned helplessness” among the sales force. This is because of the positioning marketing has relative to sales in those firms – that is, sales is king and marketing is the court jester.
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Salespeople Say: “Marketing should be more demanding to more quickly alter products and services for changing market needs.” Marketers Say: “We are under-resourced in marketing; there are too many sales chiefs and not enough implementation people.”
Greg W. Marshall Ph.D gives his take on the ‘War of Words’ between Sales and Marketing
My Take:
Salespeople Say:
In an organisation without the integrated approach to the customer experience that a strategic marketing culture demands, the salesperson quite likely has almost Czar-like responsibility and accountability for the customer. From this vantage point, it can be frustrating when customers ask for things that the firm (aka “marketing”) cannot effectively deliver. The salesperson sees their customers as “the market” and the marketing function in their firm as the fulfiller of customer demands.
“The biggest frustration to our salespeople is lack of timely information…when we need it, we need it now!”
Traditional marketing organisations are often, in fact, underresourced. I do a fair amount of professional development for the American Marketing Association (AMA) in the US and in nearly every public session where there is a mix of marketing managers and directors, probably onethird are lone wolves who are charged with singularly marshalling resources from throughout the firm in order to make marketing happen. Sales tends to have the level of bureaucracy and infrastructure that “its” revenues will support – hence a lot of people compared to marketing. But note the quotes around “its” – this model ignores that these revenues relate to an overall customer experience level for which the whole organization (not just the sales force) shares a stake.
Marketers Say: “Our success depends on fulfilling customer expectations for tomorrow, not just today.” My Take: One of the biggest challenges in putting Humpty-Dumpty together (I won’t comment on whether sales or marketing is Humpty or Dumpty) is the profound differences in the temporal perspectives of the two groups. Salespeople tend to be totally focused on the next sale. And it’s not that the firm shouldn’t want them to focus on revenue generation – the old adage in business that “nothing happens until a sale is made” is a pretty good guidepost. But as mentioned earlier, taken to extreme a short-term perspective in business can significantly impact a firm’s long-term competitive position. “Strategic selling” is actually not an oxymoron.
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Salespeople Say: “Salesperson compensation should not be penalized for price erosion or because of low profits of certain lines…. that’s a product issue out of our control.” Marketers Say: “Sales is happy to criticize, rather than accept responsibility and suggest constructive improvements.” My Take: Now we’re getting close to a central driving issue in the whole matter. Salesperson performance management systems haven’t changed much in thirty years. Sales force control, as this area is formally called, provides options for performance management that run a gamut from behavioural to outcome based systems. Most traditional systems are heavily outcome-based, which means revenue-based most of the time (as opposed to say, profit contribution of a sale). Paying salespeople commission or bonus on revenue is elegantly simple – the sales manager merely reviews the numbers at the end of the quarter with the quota set at the beginning and – voilà – the reward is set. At the end of the day when sales operates as a silo separate and apart from marketing (or any other organisational unit for that matter) and its metrics are disconnected from anything but base revenues, it sets the stage for overall organisational performance sub-optimization.
Contemporary Challenges And Opportunities Related To Sales Organisations We already know that the punch line to this article is that customers, their expectations, and their desired ways of doing business with us are changing rapidly and permanently, which necessitates new organisational approaches to managing the customer experience with our firms. Here are some of the most important issues for CEOs to consider as they contemplate how to respond to this new environment. Ubiquitous Information The value proposition that salespeople bring to bear has often been vested in their ability to efficiently and effectively convey complex and useful information to customers. This capability has steadily eroded as more and more information has become generally available to clients electronically through various sources. In the future, it will continue to be more difficult for organisations to add value to customers through the sheer conveyance of information through salespeople.
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Sales Role Shifts The selling process historically has been described as “seven steps” beginning with prospecting and ending with after-sale follow-up. Much of the traditional sales training methodologies over the past decades have focused on these process elements, yet this approach only partially represents the crux of what the sales role is today. “Traditional” selling skills are still important to master – and in fact, are highly useful to most anyone in an enterprise including top leadership. But overall the sales role today is much more strategic than in the past and sales training approaches must change to reflect this trend, and in tandem the nature of recruits for sales roles must also change. Virtual Relationships Professional buyers in the B2B marketplace are rapidly changing their preferences for how they want to do business with sellers, just as end-user consumers are changing the way they want to interface with marketers in the B2C space. Don’t forget that organisational buyers aren’t just functionaries – they are also human beings. If they prefer less face-to-face and more virtual contact with salespeople versus prior generations of B2B buyers, organisations must be prepared to make the transition in their relationship management approaches away from traditional in-person sales calls as the primary approach vehicle. CRM Is King It is impossible to compete effectively as a customer-facing enterprise today without a fully integrated, easily utilized, and consistently supported CRM initiative in your firm. End of story. Data (information) is the fuel that drives the engine of favourable customer experiences and profitable customer relationships. Sales must play a major role in providing relevant, timely, and accurate inputs to the CRM system. Unfortunately, historically many sales organisations have been lackadaisical in their support of CRM systems – not particularly surprising considering the detachment of most salesperson reward structures from organisational level performance and customer satisfaction metrics. Rewards Anyone? Sub-optimization can mean that one unit of an organisation detracts from the maximization of success of the whole firm. Because sales is in the driver’s seat when it comes to revenue-generation (remember the “Who ya gonna call” example), they have traditionally argued vehemently for compensation structures that are heavily (and sometimes even solely) based on revenue. Hence, classic commission and bonus incentive plans proliferate. It is highly unlikely that sales on its own will promote changes in this area, and they will argue – not without some merit – that if your firm’s sales compensation structure is dramatically different from this norm, the best salespeople will leave for your competitors. So to an extent sales has the firm
by the short hairs on this one. Only at the CEO level can change be affected here that recasts an organisation-wide performance management system that includes shared goals as well as shared performance metrics and rewards. This doesn’t have to eliminate salesperson incentive compensation for revenue, but it must shift to a more pluralistic system. My Brand Is Your Brand The much heralded war between sales and marketing is a civil war and it can lead to degradation of brands and customer relationships. Marketing rightly should complain if salespeople are not willing or able to reflect the brand properly to customers. Unlike many other mechanisms of brand communication that marketing can more directly control, as we know sales is often a separate silo. Correcting this is well beyond the scope and capability of mid-level marketing and sales managers. For the sake of the organisation and its brand and customer assets, CEOs have to muster the courage and will to restructure the relationship between sales and marketing.
The Future And The Bifurcated Sales Organisation I was at an event a few weeks ago at which Howard Stevens, founder of Dayton, Ohio based consultancy Chally Worldwide, offered up some strategic level predictions about the future of sales organisations and their role in the business enterprise. Chally’s work is based on 20 years of world class sales research across 80,000 B2B customers and 7,300 sales forces. Howard predicts, and I fully believe, that the familiar B2B salesperson that travels among a set of mid-sized customers and is charged with influencing purchase will soon be a dinosaur. Technology, ease of information access by buyers, changing buyer preferences for contact, and financial pressures of supporting such a sales force all combine to put pressure on the longterm viability of this large middle ground of classic B2B salespeople. The future more likely will see firms investing in two distinctly different types of selling. First, attuned to the 80/20 rule that most of the business opportunities come from a relatively few clients, key account managers (KAMs) that call on single customers and operate with extensive crossfunctional teams will grow exponentially throughout most industries. Second, for all the other customers, what likely is in store for them is a virtual relationship with the vendor through telesales and other not in person approaches to customer contact. The result is a bifurcated sales force: one group that is composed of truly professional leaders and relationship managers that operate at a very strategic level and are accountable for profit, not just revenue; and another group that are primarily service agents – professional and more than just order-takers, but not a sales force at the
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level of the traditional outside salesperson. Under this scheme, which by the way is quite customer-experience centric, sales managers as we know them today also will find their roles evolving. No traditional outside sales force, no traditional outside sales force management.
folks will come from all sorts of cross-trained professional positions within a firm, and that those jobs will be highly sought after, which will be great for cross-pollinating an organisational culture throughout the firm that is centred on the customer experience.
When is all of this going to happen? Chally’s data indicate that it already is happening, and given the elements we’ve discussed earlier that are driving change in customer relationships, it’s likely to accelerate. Remember, it’s not the selling function that is going away – rather, it’s the way that function is deployed that is destined to change. And this creates some nice opportunities.
There is a strong case that the issues and resulting changes proposed in this article are enhancing both for customer experience and firm performance. The sales function carries on but in a different form, and marketing gains more strategic clout in the firm as the ultimate customer champion across all its networks of influence. If all this in fact turns out to be true, I suppose when history asks the question “Who won the war between sales and marketing” the answer will be --- “the customer.”
Opportunities For Strategic Organisational Change The prospect of this new sales organisational reality poses some very interesting opportunities for redesigning and redeploying the remaining organisational elements that directly impact the customer experience. For one thing, CEOs and BODs will now have the impetus to affect organisational changes that benefit customers (and the bottom line) in ways that have been politically difficult in the past. The notion of having a C-suite officer focused not just on sales or on marketing, but rather on the customer, should become a reality. In truth, many CMOs properly see their role in this manner now, but as evidenced most do not have a direct say-so over sales hence there is a potential disconnect in the customer’s overall experience. It might actually be better to move away from “the m-word” for this C-suite role, and call the position Chief Customer Officer, envisioning that areas under that person’s vertical would include various marketing aspects, the key account customer teams, the virtual/telesales team, and related customer facing elements such as the website, PR, and community affairs. Such a roadmap also yields significant opportunities for educating the next generation of folks that will fill the new sales roles, as well as the people that will manage them. Both the KAM team members and the virtual/telesales group will require different skill sets from today’s traditional outside salesperson. But with KAM teams responsible for a vast majority of the business in many firms, their role will be much more that of general manager of those clients’ business relationships which requires they are well-versed in marketing, financials, HR, and operations in order to successfully serve the customer. A somewhat tricky challenge will be that, while in the past traditional outside salespeople were often promoted to sales management or to key account management, the bifurcated sales force leave few if any of these readily available folks for such promotions. That is, the aptitudes, skill set, and job requirements of the virtual/telesales force are not necessarily compatible with the base needs of the KAM positions. My guess is that ultimately the KAM 40 | July 2013
A happy ending indeed.
Greg W. Marshall
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GMN Programme Director for Selling and Sales Management Professor Greg W. Marshall is the Charles Harwood Professor of Marketing and Strategy in the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College, Florida, USA. He also serves as Professor of Marketing Strategy at Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK. He is a Distinguished Fellow and Immediate of the Academy of Marketing Science, Past-President of the American Marketing Association Academic Division, and a Fellow and Past-President of the Society for Marketing Advances. Recognised as a leading authority on sales management, his textbook Sales Force Management just released in an updated 11th ed. (Routledge 2013) co-authored with Mark W. Johnston is the bestselling title in the discipline, globally. In addition, their 4th edition of Contemporary Selling (Routledge 2013) was also just released. He was recently ranked as one of the top five most prolific contributors of all time to the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. A prolific researcher and author Professor Marshall has published over 40 refereed journal articles. He is Editor of the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice and from 2002-05 was Editor of the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. He serves on the editorial review boards of several top Marketing journals including the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Industrial Marketing Management, and the Journal of Business Research. In addition to the aforementioned sales-related textbooks, he is also co-author of Marketing Management 1st ed. (McGraw-Hill, 2010), Essentials of Marketing Management 1st ed. (McGrawHill, 2011) and Marketing: Real People, Real Choices 7th ed. (Pearson, 2012), the latter of which is recognised as one of the most widely-adopted Principles of Marketing texts amongst business schools, worldwide. Professor Marshall also brings a strong blend of industry and consulting experience having worked with a variety of blue chip organisations.
Achieving Global Sales Management Capabilities With Global Marketing Network Global Marketing Network is proud and delighted that Professor Greg Marshall is its Programme Director for Sales and Sales Management. The selling process, as historically defined as “seven steps” from prospecting to follow-up only barely scratches the surface of what the sales role is today. “Traditional” selling skills are still important to master – and in fact, are highly useful to most anyone in an enterprise not just “salespeople” per se. But overall the sales role today is much more strategic than in the past and recruiting, training, and compensating salespeople has to change to reflect this trend. Professional buyers in the business-to-business marketplace are changing their preferences for how they want to do business with sellers just as end-user consumers are changing the way they want to interface with marketers in the B2C space. Don’t forget that organisational buyers aren’t just “functionaries” – they are people too! If they prefer less face-to-face and more virtual contact with salespeople versus prior generations of B2B buyers, salespeople must be prepared to make the transition in their relationship management approaches. The much heralded war between marketing and sales is a civil war and it is destroying brands and customer relationships. Ending this war is beyond the scope and capability of mid-level marketing and sales managers. For the sake of the organization, truce must be called by the CEO and truce violations cannot be tolerated going forward. Given these dramatic changes the opportunity exists for organisations to review the way in which the sales function operates within the organisation in order to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. Greg delivers one-day and two-day masterclasses as part of the GMN Global CMO Programme. Aimed at organisational leaders of today this masterclass is perfect for C-suite executives responsible for leading the development and implementation of their organisation’s marketing and sales strategy. This Masterclass is designed to help Marketing and Sales leaders optimise their sales channels and meet sales potential by eliminating the gulf between big-picture business strategy and the day-to-day of field implementation. Furthermore it helps senior sales, marketing and business executives link go-to-market initiatives with strategic priorities and enable the sales organization to contribute effectively to profitable growth. It is highly appropriate for decision makers who are responsible for defining, managing, and measuring a company’s go-to-market strategy and sales strategy.
By the end of this Masterclass participants are able to:•• discover how to establish and communicate sales initiatives that support corporate objectives; •• build and nurture the right sales channels; •• develop company-wide alignment; •• implement the operational infrastructure, processes, and cultural values critical to long-term revenue growth; •• define their target customers and the best methods for selling successfully to those customers; •• translate their corporate strategy into sales strategies, tasks, and processes easily understood by the sales teams and the rest of the organization; •• develop account management and segmented management strategies based on customer profitability; •• create an environment that facilitates sales success; •• ensure that specific sales recruitment, development, compensation, and performance management efforts and systems support company strategy; •• leverage resources throughout the company to meet sales objectives; •• coordinate sales activities across different sales groups and throughout the enterprise; •• establish a flexible approach that enables them to readjust strategies to drive growth in a changing marketplace.
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Later this year in partnership with The Educational Academy and Routledge Publishing GMN shall also be introducing a new structured continuing professional development programme for Sales Professionals, globally. Drawing on the leading research and global best practices in sales and sales management it is based upon Professor Marshall’s bestselling books, co-authored with Professor Mark Johnston, Sales Force Management (now published in its 11th edition) and Contemporary Selling: Building Relationships, Creating Value (now published in its 4th edition). Both books are recognised as the most up-to-date textbooks on selling and sales management available anywhere in the world today. An extract from each of these books can be found on the following pages. So in addition to the existing C-suite Masterclass two new GMN Certification Courses shall be launched aimed at two distinct audiences :-
Course
Audience
GMN Postgraduate Certificate in Global Contemporary Selling
Aimed at contemporary sales professionals who want to achieve an improvement in their sales performance
GMN Postgraduate Diploma in Global Sales Management
Aimed at sales managers who are seeking a modern management approach to sales management
Postgraduate Certificate In Global Contemporary Selling Modules
Key Content
What is Contemporary Selling?
1.
Introduction to Contemporary Selling
2.
Understanding Sellers and Buyers
3.
Value Creation in Buyer-Seller Relationships
4.
Ethical and Legal Issues in Contemporary Selling
5.
CRM and Sales Technologies
6.
Prospecting and Sales Call Planning
7.
Communicating the Sales Message
8.
Negotiating for Win-Win Solutions
9.
Closing the Sale and Follow-up
Elements of the Contemporary Selling Process
10. Management of Time and Territory Managing the Contemporary Selling Process
11. Salesperson Motivation: Behavior, Motivation, and Role Perceptions 12. Recruiting, Selecting, and Training Salespeople 13. Compensating and Evaluating Salespeople 14. Global Perspectives on Contemporary Selling
Key features of the course include: •• All participants receive access to the online learning platform featuring the online version of Professor Marshall and Johnston’s bestselling textbook, Contemporary Selling: Building Relationships, Creating Value plus online resources featuring video interviews with sales experts discussing best sales practice; •• Case-studies to help participants understand and apply the key principles; •• One-year GMN Affiliate Membership providing access to GMN’s official online community and its monthly publication, Global CM The Magazine; •• Successful participants receive the GMN Postgraduate Diploma in Global Contemporary Selling, become GMN Certified Sales Professionals™ and can apply for GMN Global Accreditation. 42 | July 2013
Global CMO™ The Magazine
Postgraduate Diploma In Global Sales Management Modules
Key Content
Formulation of a Sales Programme
1.
Introduction to Sales Management in the TwentyFirst Century
2.
The Process of Selling and Buying
3.
Linking Strategies and the Sales Role in the Era of Customer Relationship Management
4.
Organizing the Sales Effort
5.
The Strategic Role of Information in Sales Management
6.
Salesperson Performance: Behaviour, Role Perceptions, and Satisfaction
7.
Salesperson Performance: Motivating the Sales Force
8.
Personal Characteristics and Sales Aptitude: Criteria for Selecting Salespeople
9.
Sales Force Recruitment and Selection
Implementation of the Sales Programme
10. Sales Training: Objectives, Techniques, and Evaluation 11. Salesperson Compensation and Incentives Evaluation and Control of the Sales Programme
12. Cost Analysis 13. Evaluating Salesperson Performance
Key Features of the course include: •• A strong focus on leadership, technology, innovation, ethics, and global business; •• All participants receive the online version of the textbook with access to the online version of Professor Marshall and Johnston’s bestselling textbook, Salesforce Management; •• Focus on multifaceted sales communication approaches, the importance of leadership, and the relationship between the marketing and sales functions; •• Case study approach to stimulate discussion and leadership challenges to assess the participants ability to make decisions; •• One-year GMN Affiliate Membership providing access to GMN’s official online community and its monthly publication Global CMO The Magazine; •• Successful participants receive the GMN Postgraduate Diploma in Global Sales Management and will become GMN Certified Sales Managers™. and can apply for GMN Global Accreditation. Visit www.gmnhome.com/sales.html for full, up-to-date information on these courses
WIN ONE OF THESE BOOKS We have one copy of each to give away.
Simply let us know which one you want. Tweet us your answer to @TheGlobalCMO with the hashtag #CMOsales include the book title and link to it’s profile (found on the following pages)
Entries close 15th August 2013 Entry content may be published in a future issue of Global CMO The Magazine.
LINKING STRATEGIES AND THE SALES ROLE IN THE ERA OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
P E RS O N AL SELLI NG I N TH E RE LA TIO N S HIP E RA The name of the game today for sales organizations is the development of longterm relationships with customers. As we have seen, a CRM model provides internal organizational formalization to support this goal and promote customer loyalty. As we have also learned, often the end result may be a strategic partnership between the seller and buyer firms. What is the role of the salesperson in the era of CRM and customer-centric firms? Some have tried to claim that, given advanced technology, electronic channels, and increased tendency for categories of goods and services to be viewed as commodities by customers, the role of personal selling in the twentyfirst century will be greatly diminished. However, in our view quite the opposite is true. Certainly, the sales role has changed in modern organizations. But rather than it being diminished, we contend that salespeople have a stronger role than ever before in the success of a firm’s customer-centric strategy. The key is, what specifically should salespeople do to maximize the success of long-term-relationshipdriven organizations? This section examines some of these sales role issues. Salespeople have a key role to play in fostering successful relationships. Relationships between organizations that result in strategic partnerships generally go through four stages: awareness, exploration, expansion, and commitment. The focus of the following discussion is on the last three of these stages because these distinguish transactional market exchanges from strategic partnerships vis-à-vis Exhibit 3.6. Remember that a key goal in today’s organizations is gaining customer loyalty. The Innovation box explains some of the techniques that can be used to build strong customer relationships and loyalty.
INNOVATION
Building Customer Relationships
Building relationships and maintaining customer loyalty are some of the key goals for organizations today. Following are some of the techniques that may be used to foster strong relationships with customers: 1. Underpromise, overdeliver. This perception of exceeding expectations can result in the customer wanting the same experience in the future. 2. Don’t forget the small things. Customers want to know that you care, and showing them that you account for even the smallest concerns they may have will help give them this cared-for feeling. 3. Stay in contact. Even when a sale is not to be made, contact your customers often to thank them. Make this contact genuine and unexpected where possible. 4. Establish a feedback system to monitor your customers’ feelings regarding the quality of the service they received. Make sure to act on any negative comments that may later affect their loyalty. These steps should help strengthen the relationship between salesperson and customer and, in turn, strengthen the feeling of loyalty the customer experiences.
In this latest edition of Sales Force Management, Mark Johnston and Greg Marshall continue to build on the tradition of excellence established by Churchill, Ford, and Walker, solidifying the book’s position globally as the leading textbook in the field. It’s a contemporary classic, fully updated for modern sales management practice.
www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415534628 44 | July 2013
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Technology Technology has fundamentally changed the contemporary sales process. In many respects it has improved the customer–salesperson relationship but technology also creates new challenges for the salesperson. Let’s consider these changes from the perspective of both the customer and the salesperson. The “old” customer–salesperson relationship model was based on the assumption that a company’s best customers demanded the most “face” time. Salespeople would call on them more frequently and seek to build a personal relationship with their key decision makers. While it is still true that a company’s largest customers require the unique benefits that personal selling brings to the customer–salesperson relationship, it is also true that customers are redefining what a successful relationship means. The Internet now allows customers to have an immediate, personalized, and comprehensive relationship with their suppliers without a salesperson. They can order, check on order status, review product information, and receive customer service. All of these activities used to fall under the job description of the salesperson. When the Internet was becoming a dominant business tool in the late 1990s, many salespeople became concerned that this would eliminate or greatly reduce the need for the personal selling function, but just the opposite has happened. The Internet has increased the need for professional salespeople who can identify the customer’s needs and deliver effective solutions. This is especially true in global sales. Indeed, most companies realize that a welltrained sales force is a huge competitive advantage in the global sales environment. In developing countries like Vietnam, companies often find that salespeople can use their product knowledge to gain the trust of their customers and win business.11 Technology has also impacted the global salesperson. Customers demand instant access to their salesperson and today’s technology enables that to happen. This has created a lot of pressure for global account managers as they struggle to accommodate the challenges of instant access, 24/7. Consider that many companies (IBM, Disney, Coca-Cola) have large operations in the United Kingdom that service customers as far away as the Middle East and even Asia. Salespeople based in London must be able to reach customers by phone or email even though they may be several time zones away. In addition, salespeople must be able to work with colleagues around the world to service their global customers.12 In addition, communication is now mobile and salespeople must be able to access and effectively use this new technology. For example, tablet computers are an essential business tool for salespeople and customers expect more effective sales presentations, faster and more accurate information, and better customer service overall from their salespeople. This means salespeople need to understand and be able to use these new technologies. Finally, technology enables “virtual sales teams” composed of individuals from around the world to effectively communicate with customers no matter where they are located. This is especially helpful with technical products where a limited number of people with sufficient skills (product knowledge and application, customer knowledge) are available. Another challenge for many companies in a rapidly changing mobile technology environment is choosing the technology platform, developing the content for the platform, then giving salespeople the tools to use it effectively. In addition, salespeople must work within the constraints of local market conditions. In cities like São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, both in Brazil, there is good access to Wi-Fi and cellular data networks, but in smaller cities coverage is not as good and a salesperson can find that his or her tablet (or laptop) is not as effective. The use of technology in global markets becomes a very difficult problem for smaller companies, who need to balance the cost of the technology against the benefits. Increasingly local customers demand high customer service and large customers demand exceptional customer service, which means that salespeople need to know how to use technology and have access to customer information. When a customer contacts a company about a product inquiry, or a customer service question, they expect the salesperson to know, and this is true if that customer is local or a large global company.
Published in previous editions as Relationship Selling, the latest edition of Mark Johnston and Greg Marshall’s Contemporary Selling: Building Relationships, Creating Value continues to set the standard for the most up-to-date and student-friendly selling textbook available anywhere today. The latest edition incorporates a new chapter on social media and technology-enabled selling, as well as a new chapter on selling globally.
www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415523509
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July 2013 | 45
Event This Month Making Global Your Local Enhancing Employability, Encouraging Entrepreneurship 27th JULY 2013, 9.00 am – 6.00 pm OPEN TO UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS, GRADUATES & PROFESSIONALS AGP International Business & Enterprise Summer School is pleased to offer its 2nd summer conference for students, recent graduates and professionals. •• Did you know your idea, product or skill is needed by someone in the world? •• What do you do to find them? •• Do you know what employers are looking for? The summer conference is a one-day event which includes real-time focusing on global awareness, employability and entrepreneurship for 21st century dynamic corporate business environment. As students, graduates or professionals refocusing, repositioning and reinventing, your strategies are key to responding to the emerging global challenges.
Join Global Marketing Network’s Darrell Kofkin, Anuja Prashar and Anurag Saxena and a host of other speakers at this event. All attendees will also receive a complimentary affiliate membership with Global Marketing Network* Venue: SIEVEMK Gateway UNIT 22, Lloyds Court, 667 Silbury Boulevard, Milton Keynes, MK13 0EJ
Not to be missed! Limited spaces
This conference offers the perfect opportunity of enhancing your employability and encouraging enterprise skills in your studies, further careers and business ventures. This year’s conference will provide a window of “Localising Globalisation for Individual Advantage”. There will be opportunities to discuss your business idea, current concerns, share good practice and consider future directions.
Topics Include
Registration Fee: Students & Graduates: £30.00 Professionals: £50.00 For registration email or phone: info@advantageglobalpositioning.com Tel: 07967 505 223
•• Global awareness, graduate attributes, labour market and employability
Bookings will be taken until 26th July or until all places are taken
•• Responding to changing world- finding relevance and fit in the emerging world
www.advantageglobalpositioning.com
•• Responsible leadership in career and business
*Subject to standard terms and conditions
•• Practical enterprise bootcamp – ideas creation, innovation, design •• Learning in the diaspora: positioning and networking for employment •• Employment opportunities in Africa- sectors, CVs and interviews
View The Full Programme Here Building Tomorrow’s Africa Global Leaders Today 46 | July 2013
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Official Event
The GMN Annual Dinner 18 September 2013 National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London, UK
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The date and venue for this year’s GMN Annual Dinner has now been confirmed. Join us for an evening of good food, fine wine and good company. The evening is a chance to network and celebrate with fellow Marketing Professionals from around the world. This distinguished black-tie event shall commence with a drinks reception at 1900hrs, followed by a four course meal including wine. The theme for this year’s event shall be “Africa – The Last Frontier”. Bookings Bookings for this prestigious event are now open. Make sure that you, your colleagues plus prospective and current clients are part of this exceptional event by securing your names on the list early. 48 | July 2013
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Network
For full details of the evening including confirmed speakers and ticket prices please contact Sushma Patel at sushmapatel@theglobalmarketingnetwork.com or visit www.gmnhome.com. About The Venue
The Annual Dinner shall take place in the David Lloyd George Room. The National Liberal Club was established by William Ewart Gladstone in 1882 for the purpose of providing club facilities for Liberal Party campaigners among the newly enlarged electorate after the Third Reform Act. The club's impressive neo-gothic building over the Embankment of the river Thames is the second-largest clubhouse ever built. Designed by Alfred Waterhouse, it was not completed until 1887. It is located at 1 Whitehall Place, close to the Houses of Parliament, the Thames Embankment, and Trafalgar Square.
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Be Part of the Future of Marketing Join GMN and become more than just a number We enjoy the collaboration and support of a great many long established, highly successful and world-class individuals and organisations from both academia and business. So when you join GMN you become part of a network containing some of the world’s leading marketing experts. Assuring you that you are in good company, and part of growing global network of Marketing Professionals where standards are high… and rising. Connecting you with thoughtleaders, so you can network with senior decision-makers, access the very latest research and practices and improve your marketing capabilities
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Key Account Management Maximising Profitability Of Existing Accounts Antony Michail fgmn
The increasing complexity of both markets and products, combined with the trends towards purchasing centralisation and industrial concentration, mean that a small number of significant accounts have become essential for the survival of many organisations. Hence, faced with unprecedented levels of international competition and technological change in industrial markets, many companies are seeking to achieve competitive advantage and bring stability to their operations by forming strategic alliances with customers and suppliers. The growth in the significance of key account management (KAM) is expected to continue and one of the results will be the change in expectations of buyers and sellers, in particular the demand for higher levels of expertise, integration and professionalism of sales forces.
Attractiveness factors may include volume but will almost always also include customer profitability, potential growth, opportunity for differentiation, risk reduction (e.g., volume in process manufacturing), and their attitude to partnership. The benefits to KAM planning went beyond the financial, and includes: Fulfilling corporate strategy Selecting the optimum number of KAMs that will result to the best results •• Better customer understanding •• New thinking
What Is A Key Account?
•• Customer involvement and buy-in
‘Key accounts are customers in a business to business market identified by selling companies as of strategic importance’ (McDonald, Millman and Rogers, 1996). They argue that strategic importance should be objectively decided on the basis of a customer portfolio matrix constructed from two perspectives: the attractiveness of the customer and the customer’s perception of the 50 | July 2013
supplier’s business strengths. The latter is important because the degree to which a key account plan might succeed is dependent on the customer’s buy-in as well as that of the supplier.
•• Sharing of information •• Formulation of strategy •• Guidance for implementation •• Learning •• Better management overview/customer portfolio management
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Sellers face a plethora of decisions related to their portfolio of key accounts which makes the profitability analysis more difficult: •• Which accounts are growing, for example, and is growth in profit commensurate with growth in sales? •• When should a customer be regarded as a key account? •• Are some customers claiming more than their fair share of service/support? •• What might be the impact of losing part or all of the business from a key account? •• When should the level of relational activity be raised? In the following section I will discuss some of the methods to analyse and understand customer profitability.
KAM Profitability The Special Problem Of Assessing Key Account Profitability If KAM is to be successful, there is an urgent need to develop reliable measures of performance and customer value which support strategic marketing decisions. Of these measures, the most promising involves attempts to discriminate among customers or groups of customers in terms of their profitability. Unfortunately, one of the major obstacles to implementing customer account profitability analysis is the inability of most management accounting systems to cope with defining what attributable costs that should be included in the analysis at different levels of aggregation. The point is that different customers invariably have different sales mixes, order patterns, locations, levels of sophistication, etc. A particular problem is to ensure that the costs incurred in “customization” are included, together with any special requests for stockholding, technical service, maintenance, etc. Making these costs visible is important because in an effort to please and retain customers, we have found numerous key account managers making loose promises and concessions which erode profitability.
As I have mentioned in previous articles, marketing accountability has become a critical issue facing boards of directors. Given the importance of a small number of major customers, KAM profitability is part of the business and marketing strategy and has to do with accountability and effective measurement within a number of companies. First of all, companies’ strategy must focus on creating sustainable competitive advantage by building sustainable key accounts. Such strategy can be achieved when a company has efficient operations, cash flow under control, and above all (and where Marketing fits in) differentiated offers that are matched to the specific needs of market segments. The measurement tools must include both: •• Tangible financial analysis, and •• Marketing asset analysis Tangible financial analysis is based mainly on the following four principles: 1. Cash flow 2. The true value of money 3. The opportunity Cost of capital 4. Net present Value (Net cash flow discounted by the opportunity cost of capital)
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July 2013 | 51
Free Cash Flow?
On the other hand, analysing the marketing assets of a company can be more difficult, especially when marketing accountability is lacking. Also Marketing departments tend to measure marketing objectives in terms of volume generation and higher turnover, rather than aligning marketing with the fundamental shareholder value objective. Marketers also neglect to align their objectives with corporate objectives and thus no true analysis can take place.
•• How much does a customer buy in a year? •• What is the direct cost of those goods? •• Are the products standard or bespoke? •• Is it steady work, or seasonal peaks? •• Sales & marketing costs? •• Untraceable costs? (i.e. order processing, stock holding, warehousing)
Besides Marketers must focus on improving their financial skills should be in position to measure the marketing assets:
•• Service costs? Sales calls? Merchandising? •• How many orders do they place in a year? •• Are they small quantities or large?
1. Marketing Knowledge (planning, objective setting, strategy setting, systems, information)
•• How many times do sales people have to visit them? •• Do you have to maintain stock for them, or do you make to order?
2. Brands (tangible and intangible analysis) 3. Customer Relationships (acquisition, retention, frequency, loyalty)
•• How many delivery sites are there? Where? What delivery terms?
4. Channel Relationships (which strategic relationships provide access to new products and markets) Secondly, one must accept the fact that acquiring new customers costs more that retaining existing ones. According to my experience, a number of my clients are far more exited in acquiring new customers rather than focusing on the existing customer base. According to Reichheld and Sasser (1990) there are several reasons why should a retained customer be more profitable than a new one: 1. The costs of acquiring new business may be significant
•• How many invoices do you raise to them? How many credit notes? •• Do they pay promptly? What are your credit control costs? •• How much after-sales service do they need? •• What is likely to change in the future?
I Suggest The Following Approach When Valuing Your Key Accounts: •• Identify our key accounts according to their attractiveness to your company both in current levels but also future potential (use portfolio analysis: directional policy matrix)
2. It will take some time, even years, to turn a customer into a profitable one 3. Satisfied customer are more likely to place a larger order 4. As the relationship evolves there is a big possibility that both companies and key accounts have a mutual understanding and hence collaboration which will result to profit maximisations and cost reductions 5. Existing customers are more happy to refer your company to others Marketers must analyse the above relationships and identify opportunities to transform basic transactional KAMs into collaborative KAMS (key customers that are willing to collaborate with you). Besides a number of previous valuable analysis tools (such as Pareto 80:20, growth potential, brand association, annual turnover, opportunity for differentiation, customer needs etc), Marketing professionals must familiarise themselves with measuring the customer lifetime value (that is, a retained customer’s financial worth to the organisation). Ask the following questions to determine whether KAMs are creating or destroying shareholder value: •• Do you know the KAM profitability in terms of Net 52 | July 2013
•• Project the future net free cash in-flows from your key customers (three to five years)
1. Revenue forecasts for each year
2. Cost forecast for each year
3. Net free cash flow for each key account for each year •• Identify key factors that are likely to increase or decrease these future cash flows •• Analyse the future opportunity in terms of cost reduction and increased profitability •• Identify the KAM’s lifetime value •• Define KAM attractiveness (a combination of a number of factors which can usually be summarised under three headings: growth rate, accessible volume or value and profit potential.) •• Produce a Matrix showing the company’s objectives position (This analysis should position each key account on the horizontal axis showing the objectives’ position in three years time of each one. Accounts can either stay in their current box, move to the right or move to the left. Enter a new figure for
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your objectives sales against each key account. •• Outline the objectives and strategies for each key account for the next three years. •• Positive Impact Analysis (PIA) - The purpose of this tool is to link deeper understanding of customer needs for value with a move to action. It asks what activities in your organization will result in positive impact on the customer’s total business experience? The impact on the business experience varies according to whether your offer is aimed at the corporate customer or whether the key account is an intermediary. •• Determine your customer retention strategy by taking into consideration the costs involved With increasing advances in information technology, it may be observed that companies are following key account management practices as it is beneficial to both the parties. Strategic account relationships are very complex. It is very essential to understand the creation and capturing of value in KAM relationships. Understanding value for each key account should enable managers to see where there are opportunities to develop a mutual beneficial approach to the generation and sharing of financial value
Antony Michail
fgmn
Founder, Anacalypsis Strategy and Marketing Consultants Dr Antony Michail is the GMN Country Director for South Africa and Founder of Anacalypsis Strategy and Marketing Consultants and has 15 years of progressively responsible experience consulting and advising both small and large corporations in relation to their marketing strategy, implementation, and company growth. Anthony has led these companies through start-up, survival, turnaround and growth modes. He has experience in auditing the marketing function, strategy, and tactics develop and execute marketing strategies, provide direction for future growth and development, new product development, effective budgeting, forecasting, and measurement. Antony has also designed a number of new initiatives to promote creative thinking in relation to new product development such as specialized Think Tank rooms, QMI (quick market intelligence) and VOC (voice of the customer) workshops. Antony has also delivered a number of academic lectures and seminars in relation to business strategy. Antony holds a Bachelor of Science degree from National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, a Master of Arts degree from University of Central Lancashire, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from University of Central Lancashire.
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Our Global Family Congratulations Daniel Baron! GMN is delighted to be supporting the career of South Africa singer-songwriter Daniel Baron. Not only is Daniel currently at #2 in the South Africa charts with Not Here featuring Proverb but he has just picked up a prestigious Wawela Music Award as Best Male Artist. The Wawela Music Awards are the first and only music awards to applaud South Africa’s international breakout music. Wawela is a Zulu word that means ‘Go Beyond’ and the awards are all about the tunes that go beyond borders to achieve success on a global scale.
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It’s Time Let us know WHAT ‘It’s Time’ for, and go into the draw. Simply email ItsTime@theglobalcmo.com and let us know what you would like to see inside upcoming issues of Global CMO. Entries close July 15th 2013 54 | July 2013
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Global Partnerships
Global Marketing Network and The Localisation Institute Join Forces The ‘Global’ and the ‘Local’ joined forces at Localization World in London on 13 June when Global Marketing Network and The Localization Institute announce that they had entered into a Strategic Partnership. Through the partnership The Localization Institute becomes a GMN Global Strategic Partner and is positioned within the network as providing conferences, training, and education in global marketing and localization issues. To celebrate the Strategic Partnership Darrell Kofkin delivered a presentation at Localization World on the role of the Global CMO. Said Darrell Kofkin, Chief Executive of Global Marketing Network, "We are delighted to be collaborating with The Localization Institute. As organisations recognise the opportunities that exist outside their domestic markets and the challenge for competing in the global markets becomes more complex the need for adaptation of products and communications at a local level becomes ever more important." Of the collaboration The Localization Institute Founder Ulrich Henes said. "GMN has an incredible network of some of the world's most successful global marketing professionals from industry and academia. We are really looking forward to their contributions to our events and conferences so that we can further educate, inspire and inform localisation professionals." Images from the Localization World event in London, including (bottom right) The Localization Institute founder, Ulrich Henes and GMN Chief Executive, Darrell Kofkin
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July 2013 | 55
Six Best Practices For Opportunity Management Laura Patterson
A study by the CMO Council on the topic of marketing and sales alignment, revealed “an urgent need for marketing, sales, and channel management to align and embrace technologies, processes, and programs that enable wider and deeper customer conversations, as well as leverage the knowledge, influence, and access of the channel and continuously refine the delivery of products and services in the most painless, seamless, and satisfying way.” And according to a study conducted by CSO Insights, only about a quarter of leads generated by marketing met expectations and about 5% exceed expectations. Just half the companies indicated they engage with less than 50% of their leads. The relationship between Marketing and Sales is at the core of how well a company attracts buyers and sells to them. This relationship is more than just a simple handoff at the point an opportunity is generated; it is the foundation for profitable revenue growth. Ensuring alignment between sales and marketing should be top of mind for every company. Why? Besides the organisational benefits, according to IDC, marketing and sales alignment offers was of the greatest opportunities to improve the revenue cycle. In addition to segmentation, go-to-market strategy, and sales enablement, a key area of for marketing and sales alignment is opportunity management. Opportunity management, that is the complete process of tracking and managing new revenue opportunities (prospective and existing customer business) from the generation of the opportunity to their conversion into a customer relationship when well-defined and properly implemented provides insight into the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing and sales efforts.
Six Opportunity Management Best Practices There are six best practices when it comes to opportunity management: 1. Using the customer buying process as the foundation for aligning both organizations- this step requires doing hour homework. Each customer segment/type may require its own process map. The more you can define the buying process behaviourally the better. 56 | July 2013
2. Tracking and scoring opportunities based on both fit and behaviour. A qualified opportunity should both be a good fit (segment, buyer type, revenue, need, etc.) for your company AND also behaviourally demonstrate they are sales ready. It is important to determine the specific “observable” behaviours that are associated with the movement of an opportunity from contact to connection to conversation to consideration to consumption. 3. Collaborating on defining a qualified opportunity to determine when an opportunity truly sales-ready. There is a difference between an opportunity being sales worthy vs. being sales ready. Sales people ideally want sales ready opportunities. 4. Measuring marketing’s impact on the sales pipeline and the number of open opportunities that result from marketing programs. There’s more to measuring marketing than counting “leads.” Our job is generate more customers, faster, and less expensively. Therefore we need metrics associated with each of these.
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5. Using customer behaviour to map the most appropriate next interactions. Once we understand the customer buying process, we can use it to develop and manage content and channels across the lifecycle. 6. Leveraging opportunity nurturing programs. Marketing and sales need to have an agreed upon plan for how opportunities that are not yet sales ready will be nurtured. These six best practices facilitate a collaborative and aligned marketing and sales team. Together, these make it possible for Marketing and Sales to manage a predictable, reliable opportunity pipeline with a plan that ultimately produces higher value opportunities and maximizes revenue. They also set the stage for developing, implementing and measuring Marketing’s contribution to the opportunity pipeline.
Laura Patterson President and Founder, Vision Edge Marketing Inc For 20+ years, Laura has been helping CEOs and Marketing Executives at companies such as Cisco, Elsevier, ING, Intel, Kennametal, and Southwest Airlines do just that. She was an early advocate of using marketing data, processes, automation, metrics, and dashboards to link marketing initiatives and investments to business outcomes. She’s an experienced practitioner with an extensive marketing and sales career in the financial services and technology industries. Laura has authored three books on marketing performance management, including the most recent: Metrics in Action: Creating a Performance Driven Marketing Organization. You can see Laura in action online at Marketing Made Simple, MarketingProfs, and Software Advice.
BizRadio Roundup
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Developing Marketing Capabilities in South Africa Dr Antony Michail fgmn GMN South Africa Director
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Loyalty, in-store decisions and neuroscience Craig Page-Lee MD, Posterscope
Value of marketing – a CFO’s perspective Ulrich Meyer-Höllings Founder and Managing Partner i:am ventures
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Smart Technology Danette Breitenbach ggmn GMN Global Advisory Council Editor, AdVantage Magazine 58 | July 2013
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Join Grant Jansen every weekday morning from 10am to noon (CAT) for the Daily Biz on Biz Radio. Catch #MarketingBiz Fridays at 10.30am.
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What the new breed of CMOs know that you don’t MaryLee Sachs fgmn GMN Global CMO Czar
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Offline shops connect with online people Christer Hansen Eriksen Co-founder of PAM – hybridshopping.com
What is Corporate reputation management and best practises thereof?
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Last Chance To WIN
WIN THIS BOOK What do you believe is a key to success as a CMO? email us at CMOsuccess@theGlobalCMO.com or Tweet us your answer @TheGlobalCMO with the hashtag #CMOsuccess Entries close 15th July 2013 Entry content may be published in a future issue of Global CMO The Magazine
WIN THIS BOOK What do you believe is a most important factor in mastering your digital marketing? email us at CMOdigital@theGlobalCMO.com or Tweet us your answer @TheGlobalCMO with the hashtag #CMOdigital Entries close 15th July 2013 Entry content may be published in a future issue of Global CMO The Magazine
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July 2013 | 61
Marketing Recruitment: “A Marketer Is A Terrible Thing To Waste” David J Hood pgnm
We have all, at some time in our careers, experienced the process of ‘Recruitment’. The means of filling a vacant position or role within an organisation, becoming evermore formal and professionalised and ‘codified’. We have been on the receiving end of it, or used it to ‘resource up’ with some marketing expertise.
all approach is so often seen in recruitment - whatever the role, the same process applies - but in our case, recruitment overlooks some important peculiarities of our profession:
As marketers however, we urgently need to address the issue and process of recruitment. There is a fundamental flaw in it for marketing - and the organisation - and it lets down the Marketer; yet as with many challenges uncovered in my examination of marketing for ‘The Marketing Manifesto’, a real opportunity exists.
3. We help bring in the money by feeding the pipeline
Fundamental Precept Of Recruitment Recruitment is simply filling a gap in the company, an empty seat. Many will hold otherwise, but ultimately, that is what it is. Just take a look at the process or some the main elements of recruitment, such as an advertised vacancy; in every case the desired skills, experience and pedigree of the ‘ideal candidate’ is based on the role that was previously vacated, or created to bridge a perceived gap in the organisations ‘skill set’. The expectations of the organisation - whether a diktat comes down from the Board, or the Personnel / Human Resources function defines and qualifies ‘the vacancy’ - are idealised in a package that best describes the role, so it can be adequately ‘filled’. What did the last person who held that position actually ‘do’? What were their responsibilities and the requisite skills needed for that role? If this is a new role, what would a ‘typical’ Marketer at that level need to look like in order to be able to fulfil the desired functional requirements?
Necessary, But Not Sufficient It all sounds a bit dry; we know that a formal process of Recruitment for all professions and roles is necessary - but is isn’t sufficient.
1. Our world-view exists outside of the organisation 2. Marketing is more than simply a function, tactic or a single person 4. We are the link between the organisation and its markets
Our World View Acknowledging that the Marketer’s world view is different from that held by everyone else in the organisation is critical. The Marketer and marketing’s role is in large part, strategically placed and conducted outside of the organisation (Ditto Sales / salespeople). Human Resources, Personnel, or whatever collective noun or phrase we use to describe the management of our ‘human assets’, exists wholly within the organisation. Each and every placement, each and every employee that is ‘managed’ is treated as if they all have the same internal world view. This is an understandable defect in Recruitment, as most of the organisation’s employees are internalised and never see past their departmental doorway. Or encouraged to do so! At the heart of the problem for Recruitment in marketing however, is a real opportunity. In realising and building on the notion that the Marketer and marketing’s worldview is wholly different, those responsible for creating or maintaining the marketing ‘role’ within the organisation can affect some real change for the better. In recognising also that marketing, and hence the Marketers position within the company too, is acting as a conduit for knowledge, information and transactions that help align the organisation with the needs of its external
OK, we all know that the process of recruitment is anything but perfect, but what does this mean to marketing and the Marketer, I hear you ask? Simple. Recruitment is an increasingly standardised process. Regardless of the developing ‘professionalism’ of recruitment, and striving to make it more fruitful for all concerned, there are some specific issues with it that are of particular importance to us Marketers. We can leave aside the obvious argument that a one size fits If Recruitment only sees and deals with the Marketer as functional Automaton, then the organisation misses the point of the Marketer and marketing.
62 | July 2013
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The Marketing Manifesto exist to serve the market; we are not round pegs destined for life seeing no further than the door of our own office or internal needs.
stakeholders too, ‘Human Resources’ can not only help maximise the performance of marketing, but can now understand the reasoning behind the phrase ‘marketing is too important for the marketing department’.
We Are The Link With The Market
Is A Marketer Employed As An Automaton?
In last month’s column, I put forward a serious motion to our profession and to the organisations and customers we serve: why not have a Customer on our Board, as representing the market, and in turn, have one of our people on the Board of our most important Customers. That person representing us, on our key Customers’ Boards, developing our primary external relationships, sensing and responding constantly and consistently, could be our Marketer.
Ah - the age old crux of the debate about marketing - is marketing just a role, a small function or can it be something that breaks out of the departmental silo? In applying the same Recruitment process to the Marketer as for ‘internalised’ employees, and thereby ignoring their distinctly different point of view, is to confine the Marketer not only spiritually and physically within a silo, but means that the organisation is actively preventing itself from becoming market-centric!
When recruiting, a rare opportunity is placed before the organisation: are you going to replace or create more of the same, round pegs and placing them into the usual safe, round holes? Or are we to capitalise on an infrequent opportunity to match the needs of the organisation, and the needs of the new Marketer, with the square hole needs of the market? Creating a new role, or filling an existing one should be an opportunity to for a step-change in the fortunes of both the organisation and the Marketer. Can we have a process of Recruitment that evidentially aligns the role and candidate with the market... please?
If Recruitment only sees and deals with the Marketer as functional Automaton, then the organisation misses the point of the Marketer and marketing. And it misses an opportunity to entrench connectedness with its markets and improve revenue.
Marketers Have A Commercial Role Along with Sales, we Marketers bring in the money. Money coming in, revenue, is affected by many processes outside and inside an organisation. Every touch-point the organisation has with its market - and its suppliers for that matter - is or should be within the realm of the Marketer. This means that the nature of our role should be reflected in how that role is defined, supported and resourced. If the organisation sees the Marketer as merely a cog in the machine, to be treated and managed in the same way as the others, then the organisation is not going to fit into the ‘gear’ of the market.
David James Hood Competitiveness Strategist
David James Hood is a member of the GMN Global Advsiory Council. A proficient and experienced Competitiveness Strategist who thrives on seeking improved revenue performance using realistic and practical market-led methods, David’s passion is to lead the call for the smaller business to improve marketing effectiveness through the ‘Competitive SME’ initiative. He has served on the UK’s Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Body and the manufacturing trade body competitiveScotland. He is Co-Director of the ‘Competitive SME’ mission, and is also a Guest Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. In 2013, Addressing the Marketers ongoing issue of “Getting the Proposition Right, First Time…” David has launched ‘The Epsilon Project’ (twitter @projectepsilon) David’s two new books, are available through Kogan Page - ‘The Marketing Manifesto’, for professional marketers and marketing, improving prowess for both the Marketer and the organisation, and ‘Competitive SME’.
We feed the pipeline. The market constantly changes; the strategies and activities necessary to feed that pipeline must change too. We represent the area of the business that undergoes the greatest change. So what does this mean for the process of Recruitment? It doesn’t mean that Recruitment simply has to keep up with the times; it doesn’t just have to see what new marketing skills should be required by the person to fit the role. Just how much does the organisation and its Recruitment people actually know about the market, to be able to align the new position directly and expertly? Surely it should not be just about fitting a round peg into an existing round hole. Heck, the trouble is, thanks to our different world view, we Marketers are by and large all SQUARE pegs. We
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Ulrich Henes is the founder and president of The Localization Institute, the US-based consulting and event company representing the interests of the global leader in providing conferences, training, and education in localization services - the adaptation of products and services for international markets. Already in his early years, Ulrich was fascinated by language, cultural differences, and global business. A native of Germany, he spent the first decade of his career organizing international campaigns against the arms race, apartheid and promoting awareness and respect for differences among people, countries and languages in the international business community. Ulrich also serves on the executive committee of Translators without Borders as chair of the sustainability committee.
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Karen Jordaan Karen Jordaan has been appointed to Global Advisory Council focusing on developing awareness of GMN and building business relationships in South Africa. Based in Johannesburg, Karen brings extensive experience in marketing global brands within an African context. As Marketing Director (Africa) for one of the most ubiquitous financial services brands on the continent – Western Union – she learnt first-hand the challenges and opportunities that marketers face when chartering unknown territory. During her tenure at Western Union she headed up several high-profile pan – African social responsibility and sponsorship initiatives that highlighted how larger Corporations can play an essential role in giving back to the communities they serve. During the next phase of her career as Regional Director for Southern and East Africa for Western Union, Karen then focused on a different aspect of marketing – how it could drive her regional P&L. This period of her career was vital in establishing the role that marketing can (and must) play in delivering measurable results. Karen’s previous experience in marketing roles across various industries such as clothing, food, pharmaceuticals and banking have also given her wide-ranging exposure to advertising, PR, CRM and research practices across the globe. After a 12 month sabbatical, Karen has now entered the next phase of her career as a Consultant and currently holds executive portfolios at several financial services companies as well as running Brand, Marketing, Management Fundamentals and Business Communication courses for various Institutions and Corporates.
Ingrid von Stein Ingrid von Stein is the founder and CEO of Indigo Zebra Communications and new media platform BizRadio, GMN’s live stream strategic partner. She has spent the last 25 years a communications strategist, conversational capitalist and industry innovator and has work side by side with some of the largest brands globally to ensure that their communications work in tandem with their business goals. Known for her tenacity and true entrepreneurial spirit is was a natural progression of her communications business to evolve and launch a unique African business platform that covered the world of business and the business of the world. Biz Radio is currently the only entity of its kind on the African continent and brings together global thought leaders and industry innovators in the world of marketing, media, advertising, branding, communications and business who are willing to share their industry insights with the world and especially those wanting to grow their knowledge and business skills on the African continent.
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Partners For Marketing Growth GMN partners are committed to it’s now widely-shared vision of creating a stronger, better respected and more unified Marketing Profession, worldwide. We believe that the potential benefits of partnering with GMN can be very significant to all parties involved, including ultimately Marketing Professionals and the wider business community, worldwide.
Bloom Partners GmbH ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË
GMN Global Strategic Partner for Digital and Strategic Innovation We’re experts in digital marketing and strategy consulting Our work is set on the intersection of strategy, innovation and incubation Our team combines more than 50 years of experience in Marketing and Consulting Our incubator Bloom Ventures invests in and consults innovative startups Close contact to academia : Our founder is visiting lecturer at the University of Cologne Our advisory board comprises leading marketing and strategy professors
Bloom Partners GmbH T: +49 89 124 1395 0
E: info@bloom-partners.com
www.bloom-partners.com
Incisive Edge [solutions] Limited ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË
GMN Global Strategic Partner Member of the GMN Global Advisory Committee The Profit Doctors for The ACCA, A & B Magazine Specialists in sales transformation through integrated & aligned sales & marketing Experts in customer acquisition & lead generation through multi-lingual SEO UK HQ, global presence
Incisive Edge [solutions] Limited UK: +44 (0)800 433 4044 E: growth@incisive-edge.com
www.incisive-edge.com www.incisivedigital.com
OnlyMarketingJobs.com ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË
Winner - ‘Best Specialist Job Board’ NORAs 2011 Winner - ‘Best Job Board’ Recruitment Consultant Awards 2011 Winner - ‘Innovative Online Marketing’ ONREC 2011 Winner - ‘Best Specialist Job Board’ NORAs 2010 Finalist - ‘Best Niche Job Board’ Recruiter Awards 2011 Finalist - ‘Best Specialist Job Board’ ONREC 2012 Finalist - ‘Best Niche Job Board’ Global Recruiter Awards 2012
OnlyMarketingJobs.com
UK: +44 (0)203 176 6677
www.onlymarketingjobs.com
UK Marketing Network ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË
The UK Marketing Network is a progressive community for marketing professionals throughout the UK Currently with 10,000 members An active forum engaging like-minded professionals with hot industry news, events and discussions. The community is free to join Networking with compatriots and forging business and personal relationships Invitations to the UK marketing industry’s leading events & conferences (often with fantastic discounts) Insightful discussions and thought-leadership from within the industry
UK Marketing Network
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UK: +44 (0)203 176 6677
Global CMO™ The Magazine
www.ukmarketingnetwork.co.uk
Keep an eye out for the Gold GMN Partner Seals. Letting you know that the organisation is committed to GMN’s vision for the future of the Marketing Profession.
Learn more in our online partner directory at www.theglobalcmo.com
If you are interested in becoming a partner, visit: www.theglobalcmo.com/become-a-gmn-partner
Vesey Creative Limited ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË
GMN Global Strategic Partner for Branding and Global Brand Guardians Graphic Design and Branding Agency Bases in New Zealand and the United Kingdom Creators/Publishers of Brand Quarterly Magazine Creators/Publishers of Global CMO™ The Magazine and The Community Brand Management service provider Insourcing and Outsourcing Brand Management Consultancy and Implementation Extensive experience in the Franchise industry Specialist ‘Design Only’ service for Marketers Vesey Creative Limited UK: +44 (0)131 208 2285 www.veseycreative.com NZ: +64 (0)9 889 0013 E: studio@veseycreative.com www.brandquarterly.com
We Get Digital ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË
GMN Global Strategic Partner for Social Media & Content Marketing Member of the GMN Global Advisory Committee Based in London but reaching out Globally Helping businesses “get” digital and maximise their internet presence Specialists in Content Marketing & Strategic Social Media for Business Training & Mentoring in all aspects of Internet Marketing
We Get Digital UK: +44 (0)20 8123 2910
E: mike@wegetdigital.co.uk
www.wegetdigital.co.uk
Kogan Page ËË ËË ËË ËË ËË
GMN Global Strategic Partner for Publishing Developer of Global CMO™ The App A leading independent global publisher of business books at all levels At the forefront of digital innovation - one of the first business publishers to digitize their products A reputation through excellence across all key areas in business publishing: Management and Leadership, Sales, Marketing and PR, Human Resource Management and Coaching, Finance and Investment, Strategy and Risk, Small Business, and Logistics and Transport, Education and Skills and Careers and Development
Kogan Page UK: +44 (0)207 278 0433
E: kpinfo@koganpage.com
Global CMO™ The Magazine
www.koganpage.com
July 2013 | 67
Global
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Global CMO™ The Magazine
Learn more in our online partner directory at www.theglobalcmo.com
GMN Fellow Profile
Svend Hollensen
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GMN Programme Director of Global Marketing Strategy and Research Director at the Department of Cross Border Studies, University of Southern Denmark.
Professor Svend Hollensen is GMN Programme Director of Global Marketing Strategy and Research Director at the Department of Cross Border Studies, University of Southern Denmark. Recognised as one of the world’s leading authorities on global marketing strategy he commenced his career in international marketing for a large Danish multinational enterprise before receiving his PhD from Copenhagen Business School in 1992. In February 2008 he was awarded the BHJ Fund award for `Excellent Education and Teaching` at University of Southern Denmark. He has published articles in journals and is the author of two case books that focus on general marketing and international marketing. With Pearson Education he has published Marketing Management – A Relationship Approach as well as Marketing Research – An International Approach (published May 2006), together with Marcus Schmidt. With a lifetime sales of 100,000 copies worldwide his book on global marketing strategy, Global Marketing - A Decision Oriented Approach (Pearson) is the bestselling text on the subject outside USA and is the recommended text on
many postgraduate programmes, as well as being used by marketers and business owners to help them design and develop their global marketing programmes. He has received widespread praise for this book. Indian and Spanish editions have been developed in co-operation with co-authors. The textbook Global Marketing has also been translated into Chinese, Russian, Spanish and Dutch. In 2013 a new low price & high volume edition of Global Marketing is planned for emerging markets (published by Pearson International Editions, India). Svend now divides his time as an academic, an author, a consultant and around the world as a speaker on global marketing issues. Svend Hollensen’s other research interests are within Relationship Marketing, Globalization and Internationalization of companies.
Are you a Marketing Leader? To see if you qualify for GMN Fellowship click here.
Hear from Svend in our Global Marketing Strategy Issue. Out Monday 5th August
Global CMO™ The Magazine
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What Makes A Great Sales Manager? Julia Payne pgmn
There’s 3 things I know to be true about sales management: 1. A sales team will never perform any better than the way they are managed or led 2. It’s not what you say that’s important, but rather how you say it 3. You have to earn respect as a sales manager and not simply rely on your position Sales management has always been at the top of the board agenda. However, with reduced revenue and margin opportunities on products and increasing service resource costs, companies must now do more with less. ‘Lean’ is here to stay and sales managers must learn to deal with, if not embrace the new norm of competitive threats, informed buyers and ever increasing revenue targets. But how? 70 | July 2013
Global CMO™ The Magazine
Our thinking on this subject is perhaps not for everyone. It’s certainly not for those antiquated sales leaders – and there’s a lot of them out there - who still think the way to lead a sales meeting is through creating a climate of fear coupled with a healthy dose of shouting and belittling. It’s also not for those leaders who are intimidated by change or new ideas and prefer to regurgitate their outmoded practices and metrics. “We’ll be having none of that newfangled thinking in our organisation, thank you very much”. No, rather it is for those leaders who are looking for outstanding performance improvement and are prepared to put their head above the parapet to see what others are doing and to hold not only their teams accountable, but also themselves. Leaders who want a practical approach which drives high performance sales behaviours.
Driving High Performance Sales Behaviours Two things are generally accepted about sales people: 1. They are motivated by money. 2. They lack self-confidence. They just want to be loved. The first can be taken care of through bonuses, compensation plans and incentives. However, a sales manager must move beyond financial motivation to develop a high performance team. Recognition Internal recognition is one of the sales manager’s most powerful tools. Being recognised for sales performance or for activities that further the company or develop individuals satisfies the sales person’s need for reassurance. It proves they and their performance matter. It breeds loyalty to the company and is shown to drive customer loyalty. Everyone wants to be associated with success. Sales team development is like training a puppy. They may be cute and adorable, but they need discipline and praise in equal measure. Tip: Never lose an opportunity to praise a sales person Competition Sales people are competitive. They may want to be loved, but it’s a dog eat dog world out there and they all want to be top dog. Despite what they say, no sales person is happy to come second in the rankings or clap their team member as they step up to take Employee of the Month. Sales teams are the breeding ground of competition and a sales manager needs to harness that spirit across the department to drive both individual and team performance. It really doesn’t matter what’s on offer; a holiday, gym membership, a cornflake – it can be anything. The managers that can develop and promote a competitive spirit within a team in
a constructive manner, will be part way to the sales team doing their job for them. Why drag a team along when they are happy to drive their own performance through outperforming their neighbour. Tip: Great sales managers create an environment where the sales team are competing against their own personal best. Developing Skills Sales is a discipline like many others and although sales people like to think of themselves as mavericks who live on the edge, in reality they welcome structure and development. Great sales managers develop team spirit and drive performance through increasing the sales knowledge and techniques of their teams. By this, we don’t mean attend a yawningly boring programme on negotiation and influence or by insisting they do their own admin – that is just not going to happen. Rather sales managers must help their team to learn new methods of selling on a practical level, one that works in the field. Tips, techniques, words, phrases – things that matter to the team, that inspire and motivate and will enable them ultimately to gain both reward and recognition. Tip: Great sales managers empower their sales team to believe that they are better than they really are. They then coach them to become as good as they believe. So a sales manager can facilitate these behaviours in their team, but what are the key behaviours of a high performing sales manager?
The Holy Trinity of Sales Management. The 3 Cs Consistency Every sales manager wants consistency from their sales team, but only the most effective managers reciprocate. Consistency is one of the greatest sales behaviours that a manager can display. By its nature, it’s not one that can be employed when or whether you feel like it and that’s the challenge. Consistency of process, attitude and communication is vital. Your team is looking for a role model, they need predictability not volatility and that means you must deliver what you have promised, time and time again. As draining as it can be, you need to provide the ‘why’, the rationale, the thinking behind each of your decisions, your actions and your words. You need to deal in fact rather than rumour. You need to lead by example. You need to make the time. In short, being a successful sales manager means more work, not less. Tip: A sales team learn not from what they hear, but from what they experience.
Global CMO™ The Magazine
July 2013 | 71
Communication
Julia Payne
Communication in sales management comes in many forms; to the team, to management, through feedback, coaching and development.
Co-founder, Incisive Edge
Effective sales managers are always conscious of what they say and how it may be interpreted. They do not speak in haste, but rather think about the consequences of their words, conscious that it is far easier to demotivate through thoughtless communication, than motivate. They are measured, proactive and constructive in their approach, taking the time to offer guidance and appreciation. They refuse to rush conversations with their direct reports, instead providing clear development plans and messages which lead to increased productivity and reduced team turnover. Communication is the backbone of sales and sales management. Seeking and expressing views not only ensures transparency and a healthy team dialogue, but distinguishes the exceptional manager from the average. Tip: It’s not what you say that’s important, but rather how you say it. Clarity
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Julia is a member of the GMN Global Advsiory Council and the GMN Membership Committee. She is co-founder of Incisive Edge and Incisive Digital, and an expert is sales strategy and aligning marketing to drive sales. She has advised FTSE 100 companies, mid tier companies looking to enter the FTSE, owner managed companies, Royal families, associations and governments on several continents. Julia is well known for providing strategic sales and marketing advice that is down to earth and relevant, taking into account realworld complexities of business. She is also a prolific writer, being extensively published in the field of sales and strategy and a highly sought-after speaker on process-led implementation, business growth through sales and marketing and how to drive revenue. Julia is frequently quoted in the national press, including FT, The Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian, together with numerous trade publications. She is also a prolific writer, being extensively published in the field of sales and strategy, and a highly sought-after speaker on process-led implementation, business growth through sales and marketing and how to drive revenue. www.incisive-edge.com www.incisivedigital.com
No sales team will ever perform to any level of meaningful performance where expectations are not clearly established. Clarity comes from understanding – been there, done that; from responsive communication and systems and processes which are adhered to and consistently implemented. Sales managers who lead effectively genuinely understand the problems their team face and develop practical processes to reduce or eliminate them. They appreciate models and theory, but use them only as a framework on which to hang the specific challenges faced by their team. They measure, but don’t let excessive data stifle the performance of the team.
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Role clarity is also essential. It is a proven fact that the best results are obtained when individuals understand what their role entails and the part they play in achieving the company’s objectives. Tip: A sales person without clarity is like a rudderless ship – going nowhere, fast. Sales management does what it says on the tin; part sales, part management, although not in equal parts. Sales managers must always be managers first and foremost because the truth is, a sales team will never perform any better than the way they are managed.
Choose from over 250 Marketing Jobs on the UK’s leading specialist Job site www.OnlyMarketingJobs.com
72 | July 2013
Midnight Worries instant turned sales & marketing into consumer driven value. We have seen in close-up the slowmotion fall of a national retailer who chased the euphoric high by moving from one sale a month towards two a week. Two things happened; 1. Sales return on ad-spend remorselessly declined 2. Sales of non-sale merchandise fell off the cliff
Is your selling not gelling? Are your pitches, glitches? Walter Spoonbill of Spoonbill & Coot helps you turn fails into sales. Dear Walter, We are a national fashion retailer & last year our key strategy was “most wanted merchandise at 25% off”, over a Friday to Sunday at month end. Return on ad spend was good & now management wants it to happen twice a month. This makes me nervous Sales Head Honcho Dear Honcho – Coot & I agree that a great sale is like a Harry’s Bar Dry Martini. The cool, smooth, slightly spicy hit of pure alcohol has the same lift as price-off jerseys at the beginning of Winter. After one dry martini, you feel good, after two you know you’re good, three you’re invincible & four you don’t know anything. So it is with sales – wonderful in moderation, but addictive & likely to lead to a collapse onto the floor with bleary tears & abject apologies. Yet they are so insidiously addictive. You compare last year with this year. You need a lift. The merchandise has no edge. So, more sales. The gutsiest marketing director we knew refused to advertise the chain’s range of men’s clothing. “It doesn’t deserve a cent to be spent” she said & in an
In-depth research highlighted the problem – a growing lack of trust. “they put up prices 35% to take off 25%” was a typical, not wholly inaccurate response. During this time, pressure was put on the ad agency to create sales ads that people enjoyed. Liking figures rose, yet revenues plunged deeper than debutantes necklines. As one research respondent said – “it’s like the flirt who’s the life of a party – you may dance with him, but you won’t take him home with you”. Margins in the business were squeezed, so were suppliers who sacrificed quality & care to feed the habit. Profits stuttered, the share price staggered & the CEO was kicked out. The new boss took the pledge of everyday low prices, knowing the fashion first aspiration had suffered a few too many hits. Sales, like that Harry’s Bar, dry martini, are wonderful in moderation. But beware – is is addictive. Rather, turn your spend into an investment – show why what you’re selling is really worth selling.
Dear Walter, Is there one sales tip that works, no matter what you’re selling? Sales Neophyte Dear Neophyte, Not for the first tine, Coot & I disagree. For me, the unwavering principle for a sustainable business is – sell the truth. First interrogate your product or
service until It talks to you. Why is It different or better? Make your edge sharp, then keep unrelentingly on message. Coot chirps loudly, dismissing this: “from religion to hamburgers & politics truth is relative. & at best, a product truth is not the whole truth & nothing but the truth. So create your own reality.” The Coot tip of the day is to focus on first impressions, giving three examples. 1. An Internet Services provider targeted at corporates & staffed by 20-somethings became number one in the country. The key was gaining corporate trust & so salespeople were dressed in Hugo Boss suits & ties. 2. Lexus could compete with Mercedes in the USA, but was a rare sight on South African roads. Research revealed the problem – potential buyers did not want to walk into a Toyota showroom. The marque invested in separate showrooms & sales have found another few gears. 3. Supermarket own labels showed serious growth when repackaged to look as good as their branded big brothers Deep down we are superficial beings, Coot declares & glitz is good. That cannot be true,” I splutter. “It’s my truth, not yours” Coot snaps, quick as our Paris pickpocket – “proof that truth is relative.” I retire from the fray, in logical confusion. May your cocktails be cold & your sales sizzle,
W.Spoonbill.~
Walter Spoonbill
Wspoonbill@theglobalcmo.com Spoonbill & Coot North Corner, Southern Tip, Western Cape, South Africa
Do e-mail Walter with your Midnight Worry – the most intriguing will be published & answered. Global CMO™ The Magazine
July 2013 | 73
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