Book review – From products to customers to the human spirit: Marketing 3.0 By Kotler, Kartajaya and Setiawan

I’ve just read and written a review (for Professional Marketing magazine) of “From products to customers to the human spirit: Marketing 3.0” by Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, Iwan Setiawan. It suggests that Marketing 3.0 is where marketing has evolved from being product centric, to consumer centric to being focused on humankind. Lofty ideals indeed.

Early on it looks at the importance of social media (both expressive and collaborative forms) in being a key enabler in this massive shift in marketing.

Collaborative marketing is the first building block of Marketing 3.0 and this should have great resonance with the professions where we are seeing major corporations forge much closer partnerships with their professional advisers in terms of shared knowledge bases and the building of systems together.

Cultural marketing is the second building block of Marketing 3.0 addressing concerns and desires of global citizens – another key issue for the professions as we struggle with the challenge of balancing global reach and local connection.

The third force is the rise of creative society – right brainers who work in creative sectors such as science, art and professional services. Again, the professions – for so long used to leading the way – has started to adapt to the idea that consumers (both businesses and individuals) are more sophisticated and no longer passive recipients.

It explores these three changes that lead to Marketing 3.0 – Participation and Collaborative Marketing, Globalisation Paradox and Cultural Marketing and Age of Creative Society and Human Spirit Marketing and offers an interesting model:

From Product management (Four Ps - product, price, place, promotion) to Co-creation

From Customer management (Segmentation, targeting and positioning) to Communitization

From Brand management (Brand building) to character building

It suggests that Marketing 3.0 complements emotional marketing with human spirit marketing. Then it goes on to talk about how marketers must identify the anxieties and desires of the consumers to be able to target their minds, hearts and spirits. I get a bit nervous when marketers are charged with such important tasks and prefer to focus on the need to develop culturally relevant campaigns.

After a brief look at new approaches to innovation (cocreation with customers and suppliers) – which I found useful - it moves onto communitization and points to Seth Godin’s observation in “Tribes” that consumers want to be connected to other consumers more than companies. Strong support for the professions to engage in social media I thought.

There is an interesting exploration of Prahalad’s “The Fortune at the Bottom of the pyramid” and Hart’s “Capitalism at the crossroads” which identified the new potential of the poor as both a growing consumer market and a prominent lab for innovation. And as legal markets in the Western world mature, the idea that we look to the poorer segments is a good one and should provide some food for thought and, hopefully, real innovation.

In chapter four – marketing the values to employees – there are some helpful ideas around employee participation and internal marketing which is so often neglected in marketing texts. In particular, it refers to the studies by Erickson, Dychtwald and Morrison reveal six segments of employees:

- Low obligation and easy income seeking quick wins
- Flexible support goes with the flow don’t see job as a priority yet
- Risk and reward see jobs as opportunities to challenge and excite themselves
- Individual expertise and team success seeks jobs offering teamwork and collaboration
- Secure progress looks for a promising career path
- Expressive legacy looks for opportunities to create a lasting impact on the company

It also mentions McKinsey’s four types:
- Go with a winner (growth an achievement)
- Big risk big reward (good compensation)
- Lifestyle (flexibility) and
- Save the world (contribute to a great mission).

I liked the reminder that you should convince people by telling stories and engaging their emotions rather than providing data and engaging their intellect.

At the end there is a summary of the credos of Marketing 3.0 which are worth repeating:

Credo 1 – Love your customers, respect your competitors (Win their loyalty through giving them great value and touching their emotions and spirit)

Credo 2 – Be sensitive to change, be ready to transform

Credo 3 – Guard your name, be clear about who you are

Credo 4 – Customers are diverse; go first to those who can benefit most from you

Credo 5 – Always offer a good package at a fair price

Credo 6 – Always make yourself available, spread the good news

Credo 7 – Get your customers, keep and grow them (a CRM plug)

Credo 8 – Whatever your business, it is a service business

Credo 9 – Always refine your business process in terms of quality, cost and delivery

Credo 10 – Gather relevant information but use wisdom in making your final decision

The book is structured as follows:

Chapters:

Part I - Trends
1. Welcome to Marketing 3.01
2. Future Model for Marketing 3.0
Part II – Strategy
3. Marketing the mission to consumers
4. Marketing the values to employees
5. Marketing the values to channel partners
6. Marketing the vision to shareholders
Part III – Application
7. Delivering socio-cultural transformation
8. Creating emerging market entrepreneurs
9. Striving for environmental sustainability
10. Putting it all together

Making the most of meetings

Most lawyers, surveyors and accountants moan about how many internal meetings they have to attend and what a huge amount of time (and money) is wasted in them. So how do we make our meetings more effective?

Common sense and communication

The professions are bright people. They understand that effective meetings require preparation, objectives, a clear agenda, a chairperson, debate and decisions and minutes - but it rarely happens. So what’s the problem?

The answer, of course, is that people are “too busy”. They often don’t have time to properly research and prepare on a specific project or topic so they gather people together “for a chat” to get the brain juices running. Often, the meeting is to scope an issue and take soundings of other people’s views. In effect, it isn’t a “meeting” that they need but just some “heads up” time. And this can be achieved in less formal and less time expensive ways than a meeting and all that it entails.

Another angle is that meetings are a time when people from disparate parts of the firm come together to exchange ideas and/or to brief more junior members of the team on key developments. These communication opportunities can sometimes be achieved in more effective ways than a formal meeting (have a think about teleconferencing, webinars, teleconferences, awaydays, socials, internal communication tools like Yammer, intranets, team break outs or simply “walking about” etc).

How long?

Why do people always schedule an hour for meetings? Why not 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 45 minutes? Or, if you record your time in 6 minute chunks – what about 12, 18, 24 or 36 minute meetings? Perhaps set the meeting so that people are in the room at 10am for a prompt 1015am start – that way those who didn’t get around to preparing can do so and you have built in time for any catching up or settling down behaviour.

And we all use electronic calendars (!) – with reminders that can be set to provide an early warning time of 15 minutes or more. A little bit of diary management and we can ensure that we allocate preparation time for meetings so that we don’t turn up in a raging hurry from the previous meeting having done no preparation.

And while it seems to be OK for meetings to over run, why don’t we more often have people say “All done – and with 20 minutes time left. Aren’t we efficient?”

How often?

I’ve also noticed that many firms have “regular” slots for meetings – every Monday morning, every last Thursday of the month and so on.

I know that it is important to maintain the impetus on certain initiatives but are they ALL really necessary? How often are the regular meetings challenged with something like “Do we actually need to get together this week/month? – Let’s hold off until next month and we can hold the only agenda item til them as it isn’t urgent”.

Better still, if it has been agreed at a previous meeting that someone will do something, aren’t we all grown up enough to assume that they WILL actually do it without being checked up on at the next meeting (Yes, I realise that this sadly often isn’t the case in the professions – but I can dream can’t i?).

Or, being even more radical, why doesn’t the department head or project leader simply call or pop into those who agreed to complete actions to check up that they have done so and to agree the next steps?

Learn from other industries

I remember being impressed when I was invited to the launch of British Airways’ Waterside offices several years ago. The meetings rooms didn’t have chairs and the tables were higher to accommodate standing people. If people can’t sit down the meetings are likely to be shorter.

And another thing, why waste time at the start of meetings getting cups of coffee and other refreshments – can’t this be done in non meeting times?

Influencers but not decision makers

Too often there are way too many people at meetings. Often in the professions it isn’t easy to identify who is actually responsible for a particular topic and to sort the “would like to be involved” folk from the “I am involved and will actually do something” people. Therefore there is a cast of thousands at a meeting, rather than the handful of people who really need to be there.

This can be easily addressed by sending information to the wider group of people and asking only those with a responsibility or real need to be present to attend the meeting. If your minutes are good then those with a passing interest can learn what was discussed and agreed and comment afterwards if necessary.

Role models and power plays

If the most senior people ensure that they are ready at the start of the meeting, having read the relevant papers in advance and focus on keeping to the agenda and time allocation then you can be pretty confident that everyone else will do the same. Obvious really.

There is also a tendency for the most senior people to chair the meetings. But they often lack the skills or desire to manage the time effectively – possibly for fear of upsetting or appearing to cut short one of their peer partners.

However, I have observed that in many firms often the most senior folk are amongst the last to arrive. And the excuse “Sorry – I was on a call to a client” seems to prevent anyone from challenging their tardy arrival and the disruption it causes (I don’t think I am the only one who wants to throttle the late arriving partner who says “I may have missed it at the beginning but…”. I always want to say “Yes, you did miss it and we aren’t going over it again”).

Culture

On a more serious note, does your senior management and culture support strict adherence to basic meeting manners? It might be that you prepare a simple “Meeting Rules Sheet” on which a few basic guidelines are written to which everyone (yes, that means you) adheres. Much easier to point to the agreed behaviours when challenging non conformance.

It takes 21 days to break an old habit and create a new one. So how about a concerted effort on better meetings by a month long campaign on “Better meetings” to allow everyone the opportunity to try doing things differently – and better?

Developing a privately funded family law practice

Yesterday I was in Manchester (which was sunny and warm if you want to know) delivering another of the CLT training sessions on “Developing a privately funded family law practice” with 19 enthusiastic family law practitioners.

During the day we covered the planning cycle and development of an appropriate business development strategy, some guidelines for motivating the entire family team to get involved in marketing as well as considering a wide range of marketing, business development, relationship management and selling techniques.

Every time I run a session like this, it strikes me how different things grab people’s imagination. And yesterday was no different. The main areas of interest that the delegates reported back to me at the end of the day were:

• Planning – The need to develop an in-depth understanding of the fast changing family law market, creative approaches to segmentation in urban and rural, wealthy and poorer markets and to explore the use of technology to support aspects of commoditisation for both service efficiency and to reduce costs.

• Brand – The tough challenge of differentiation and some of the innovative ways that family law practitioners have found to package up and extend their services or identify unusual niches to help them develop effective personal and firm brands.

• Social media – Particularly the way that tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging link together with established marketing tools for reputation management such as thought leadership and media relations into integrated promotional campaigns - as well as supporting SEO.

• Relationship management – Developing a focused (based on sound analyses of the client base, source of work and local market) and structured approach to developing relationships with referrers whether they are past clients or intermediaries such as accountants and IFAs.

You might want to also take a look at my blog post of 15th December 2009 on “Marketing a family law practice” and the more recent post on 7th August 2010 on “Private client marketing to High Net Worths”.

PM Forum Conference – The clients bite back (Sony Ericsson, Better Capital and JP Morgan)

My favourite session at each year’s PM Forum Annual Conference is the final plenary session where a panel of professional service clients are invited to give their view on the marketing and sales approaches that they receive and to answer questions from the floor.

This year the panel comprised:

- Jonathan Pearl, Corporate Vice President and General Counsel at Sony Ericsson
- Jon Moulton, Chairman of Better Capital (formerly managing partner of Alchemy, UK based private equity firm)
- Krista Lindsay, Vice President, corporate real estate EMEA at JP Morgan

Here are some of the highlights of a most entertaining and interesting discussion.

Q: How can firms be better at pitching?

JM – Find out what we might be interested in and pre-qualify so that you know the relevant decision maker
JP – Most law firms seem to be embarrassed to sell and pretend that they are on a social visit. If they were good at selling, they’d be dangerous
KL – Having previously been involved in architecture and design, I find that they are generally very good salespeople. The professions provide similar services so they need to be clear about what differentiates them – this takes time and research to demonstrate appropriate expertise

Q: What tips or best practice have you seen in building good professional relationships?

JP – Be upfront about fees. Bill on time. We scrutinise every bill to see if there are areas where we do not get enough value from the relationship. Most lawyers are not good at handling relationships – they are good at giving advice, but not so good at the commercial side of things. One firm even got my company and another Sony business confused – I wasn’t very impressed. All touch points are important – brief your telephone and reception staff – I expect them to recognise me when I call or visit. What impresses me is responsiveness – I had an injunction late on a Friday afternoon. I called five firms and the one that answered got the job – and we have had a good relationship ever since
JM – Show your understanding. Do Google searches before pitches or make a short telephone call asking “What would make you change your supplier?”
KL – Know your client. Suppliers must be prepared to roll up their sleeves and work with you, really get to know you. Be interested and inquisitive – no “cookie cutter” service.

Q: What are the alternatives to billable hours?

JM – In the private equity field we are used to contingency fees which make lawyers uncomfortable. But in essence we need firms to provide a budget for fees and stick to them – as they do in the construction industry. So, provide an accurate quote and hold to that price. Chargeable hours are just stressful to everyone.
JP – Budgets and staged payments. Law firms should rethink the whole model as the billable hour is outmoded. If one firm were to drop it, they would be a serious contender.
KL – Just no surprises please

Q: What are the most novel ways people have used to get in front of you?

JM – I’ve had a whole bookcase of rubbish books, business books, coffee table books with images of slums – these don’t work very well. I have been offered a three day cruise and been invited to a dinner to celebrate the opening of an office – where it was just myself and five lawyers. One of the most satisfactory relationships I had was with a lawyer in a small firm who used to say to me, at the end of a transaction and before posting the bill “What do you think it was worth Jon?”
JP – If you have done your homework and call me. Lots of emails don’t work. If someone calls with a compelling proposition I will be thinking “How can I find some work for this person?” What is it that you have that is unique to offer – a very qualified lawyer with no trimmings, someone with a lot of experience, someone who can get on with the project who knows your organisation well and can be up front and commercial. We’re looking for value.
KL – When a person contacts me and they know what I am interested in and have some of value for me.

Q: Do you think that next year’s LSA will have an impact on relationships?

JM – I can’t see people investing in law firms. If you take the cash out of a law firm, the troops will be less well paid. The accountants tried it and it just about worked (although one recently went bust). I don’t think it would be a stable model. Perhaps where a firm is just processing low end work it may. But the bulk of law firm work would not operate well with external shareholders.
JP – I am of the same view.

Q: Returning to the fees question?

KL – Most clients are financially astute. You need to be open – if the fees are discussed up front and there is open discussion then there are no surprises. But often fees are not transparent – projects move quickly and then is no opportunity to alert the client to the changing costs.
JM – Early notification. Unlike the construction industry, the professions have a love of extras. I want firms to admit if they make a mistake and a reduction in rates is the best form of apology.

Q: Has any firm ever provided a startling insight?

J – Some have tried – but they pitched it badly. Telling a client that they are wrong at a pitch is wrong. The best insights are from advisers who are working on a job – we have had some very good advice and solutions. We remember these occasions and return to those advisers. There was one firm who had a young associate who proposed a quick and easy solution – it was a brilliant idea.
JM – It’s rare. I just want advisers to recognise my needs. If they can offer some better ideas – for example in tax, that’s fine.
KL – I am always interested to hear what others in my industry are doing…

Q: What are your views on professional firms’ marketing?

JM – It means very little to me. Entertaining doesn’t make a difference to me. I just want the basics – field good people, show your credentials, perform well and set the fees right. One firm had a partner who failed to recognise that he had been at the same school as me.
KL – There was an awful situation where a potential supplier sent two people in to a panel of 15 – the presenter who was speaking was really good and clear but the colleague started to fall asleep. When architects and designers present they always come along as a team. The problem is when those who present are not those who are actually going to do the work.
JP – Technology let one firm down – they didn’t know how to hide slides and kept turning the machine off. Lawyers need a lot of help selling.

Q: Should professional firms invest if professional sales people?

JP – I tried to find a lawyer online for a mediation in a niche area. I received a call form the marketing director and we had a good conversation – they followed up with a pitch.
JM – Too many sales professionals can be a turn off. Probably what we want is a client relationship person. Quality control calls after a transaction are appreciated. It is important that whoever was at the first meeting remains in touch.
KL – I want to see who will be working with us

Q: As people buy from those they like, how important is rapport?

JM – If that were the case, no one would ever hire an actuary! Body language, words and attention are important. People playing with their Blackberry is a turn off. I need people to show that they are interested – with eye contact. Empathy isn’t essential but respect, interest and communication are. And no matter how much rapport there is there can be no “rapacious charging”.
JP – I know a number of litigators – and divorce lawyers – that I wouldn’t want to spend time with
KL – Research indicates that we must engage with people on any number of levels as an individual

Q: When you put work out to tender, how do firms prove they provide “added value”?

JP - This is partly due to culture. Access to their library and training is fairly standard. Seminars are helpful – partly for the networking opportunities and also the opportunity to learn – at a high level – for example, with a good economist. These sorts of events impress me.
JM – On a particular topic – for example, corporate restructuring – three or four people from our side and three or four from the advisers over a bottle of wine to consider what can we do that is different. Obviously not charged for – this is easy and good to arrange.

Q: Do you have any views of firms’ web sites?

JP – Mostly I am looking for the telephone number of a particular specialist. I don’t want to see shots of exotic premises.
JM – Email and telephone details.
KL – In property we are used to more visual stimulation and like to see previous projects and case studies.

Q: What do you think of subscription web sites?

JP – I would pay others to do the research
JM – Most of the information we need is there for free

Q: What are your views on low balling fees?

KL – If it’s very low it will sound warning bells. We would worry that the firm might come back later and ask for more. Or we may suspect that they will field junior staff.
JP – If it’s comparable service then we will go for the lowest price.

Q: So how do you choose which firm?

JM – Back to the basics – are the people able? Do they have the time available? Are they competent? Does it provide value for money? All the other aspects – fees, physical environment, quality etc are secondary.
JP – Fees are not the determining factor
KL – The relationship and chemistry is important – you need to know that the teams will work well together

PM Forum Conference – Laurie Young on “An alternative to commoditisation” and Andy Bounds on selling skills

Each year I go along to the PM Forum Annual Conference although this year I was co-presenting a workshop session with Peter Abraham of e-consultancy on “Using social media in (new) relationship development” pursuing our interest in social media in the role of selling in the professions (We are producing a white paper on this topic shortly and will blog separately).

The first two plenary sessions were presented by Laurie and Andy and I thought I’d comment on a couple of the points that they made.

Laurie Young – Attracting high margin mandates

Laurie explored how some firms (e.g. McKinsey, Goldman Sachs) managed to rise above the bun fight of commoditisation and fee pressure to keep their margins high. He suggested that the common factor was “explicit reputation management which keeps cost-of-sale low and price high” and personal franchises. I liked his observation, I think he said it was from The Economist, that “much thought leadership is in fact thought followship”. He outlined the beginnings of a model for high margin strategy which included:

• Reputation and client service stimulate demand pull
• A personal franchise, a point of view and senior level access
• Eminence, fame and mystique (creates familiarity and aspiration, don’t give away the family silver, you cannot market yourself and choose who not to deal with, it defines you)
• Track record and heritage

Andy Bounds – The best, simplest way to generate fees

Having won “Britain’s Sales Trainer of the Year 2009’ and author of best seller “The Jelly Effect: make your communication stick” we knew Andy was going to do a spectacular presentation. What he did was to take a simple, well known sales tip (the need to translate features into benefits by answering the question “So what’s in it for me?”) and create an engaging and compelling session.

He pressed home the point about how awful it is for sales pitches to start with a long introduction that is inwardly focused with some graphic examples. He suggested an interesting approach – use a blue highlighter to identify all the statements in a proposal about your firm and its offering and an orange highlighter on all the points about the benefits to the client.

He then explored the four different memory preferences – primacy, recency, repeat and outstanding and finished with a reminder that “facts tell, stories sell”.

Get things in perspective

I usually reserve this blog to write about work related issues but I am making an exception.

Earlier this week a senior partner at a firm I work with calmly and without drama announced that a close family member was attending tests for a life threatening condition the next day. We were all taken completely by surprise - both at the shock of the awful announcement and the composure of the partner.

He sent a short email subsequently to say that whilst it was not the immediately life threatening condition feared, it was degenerative and life limiting. We were all humbled by the way he accepted with good grace the awful prognosis and thanked us for our support.

It just made me want to remind everyone that whilst careers, work, money, deals. projects and markets are important - actually, facing the prospect of premature death puts it all in perspective.

So take some time out NOW to be with your loved ones. For they, ultimately, are what it is really all about. And sacrifice, please, a few of those potentially billable hours to enjoy some of the simple pleasures we often miss each day just in case life rudely and cruelly interrupts.

A day in the life of an office agent

The Evening Standard Homes & Property section runs a regular feature called “Diary of an Estate Agent” seeing life through the lens of those selling residential properties. But I had to spend a day with some real life commercial property agents last week to gain a bit more insight into the firm E A Shaw with whom I work on a regular basis.

My day started at the alarmingly early time of 8am when they have their weekly team meeting to go through all the work projects they have running both in their two key territories – Southbank and Covent Garden/Holborn (Midtown). Happily, they had provided coffee, croissants and pastries from the local coffee shop to ease the shock of such an early start.

Meeting promptly over and I was off out with one of the partners and a young surveyor. We took a taxi over the river to meet with an asset manager from one of their development clients to take a peek at four small offices on one of the floors above a rather prominent pub not far from London Bridge station in the shadow of the rapidly growing Shard. The asset manager was keen to hear the views on what rents might be possible depending on the extent of some planned modernisation works and to assess whether to keep the units separate or forge ahead with more substantial works to remove some non structural walls to create one large office space. Interesting discussion.

We returned in a taxi back to the office in the heart of Covent Garden. After a few minutes to catch my breath (and an extremely fast cup of coffee) I was out with an associate and another young surveyor (conveniently sharing the same name as the one who had come with us to the South Bank) as we walked briskly down towards Red Lion Square where nearby, in New North Street, was a self contained and rather lovely split level office that is likely to come onto the market in a few months. After a quick tour we spent a little time thinking about where best to place the letting board so that it could be easily seen.

And then we were off again, striding across the roads to reach Great Queen Street where there is an impressive marketing suite for New Brook Buildings. The newly refurbished reception area was really impressive and the large floor plates of the available space were light filled and super modern.

I didn’t make it back to the office as I was handed over to another agent – this time a woman – who had just collected the keys to show me around one of the firm’s most impressive developments – St Martin’s Courtyard. Whilst I have walked up and down Long Acre about a zillion times, I was struck by how different Slingsby Place now looks. The newly pedestrianised pavement sits between the freshly cleaned façade of Banana Republic on one side and another impressive retail outlet on the other.

Whilst there is still some construction works here it is clear that this will be a beautiful area – similar in style to St Christopher’s Square over in the West End. There is an incredible blue and silver design on the front of what will be a restaurant which overlooks a small square of what will be some rather select retail outlets. The extensive development (a joint venture between Shaftsbury Estates and The Mercer’s Company) includes some commercial office space as well at number 10. There are achingly new bright modern floors with those really attractive skylight windows which shout “media company headquarters”. Oh to work in offices like these!

Dragging ourselves away from such a lovely environment, we returned to the office. At this point we parted company as I had agreed to meet with a colleague at nearby Holborn to talk about her new business venture. The agents were heads down in deep conversation on the phone or tapping information into their PC screens. But I returned again towards the end of the afternoon for a full meeting of partners where numerous firm-wide initiatives were discussed. It was buzzy.

The office agents were still running in and out of the building and talking non stop on the phones to clients, solicitors and other agents as I slipped away around 530pm to get to an evening meeting on the other side of town. How do they maintain such energy levels? Mind you, I can think of a lot less appealing ways to earn a living than walking around the amazing properties in Covent Garden, the West End and South Bank. If only I would be happy to part with my high heels on a permanent basis…