June 19th, 2015

Customer Intimacy: Messaging to Enable Sales

Since it’s so important to success, let’s talk about messaging and the sales force. You must differentiate your business with clear messaging attributes which include:

  • An Idea Sellingstoryboard
  • Answers to key questions like:
    – “Why” they should do this
    – “How” they can do this
    – “With whom” should they do this

The Idea Sellingstoryboard must be complete but concise.  Glean out a 2-3 minute explanation of why examining the Idea is so important for the customer group – The Idea Statement.  If the story takes 15 minutes to explain, it is by definition not messaged well, too complex, or too focused on your firm’s capabilities, for this stage of your journey. 

July 2nd, 2014

Marketing & Customer Intimacy

In the simplest sense, marketing has a direct role in market strategy, participation strategy, and enabling the success. Because of their unique role and perspective on the business, marketing owns or is heavily involved in the strategy of the business, and often drives the decision-making process of how to address commoditization issues.

December 28th, 2013

The CEO and Customer Intimacy

In senior executive circles, the idea that True Customer Intimacy is a business model transformation initiative is often greeted with knowing smiles and nods, but little understanding of what’s truly required. More often than not, the CEO expresses great interest in theCustomer Intimacy model but then wants to implement it along with 20 other initiatives, assign it to some low level committee, and hopes to be done in a year.