What’s your line?

A lesson of this economy has been to market smarter, not to just sell harder; so how can it be that some B2B companies continue to go to market by focusing on their line cards as “product solutions” to complex customer problems?

We can report that the B2B brands we work with are starting to capitalize on insight based marketing and selling (and buying – by taking the customer’s point of view!)

As we move out of this recession, longer-term and more profitable relationships are being built and it’s happening because there are B2B leaders who are making the decision to act now. Such decisiveness is nearly impossible in those organizations where customer insight is lacking, because there are no clear reference points guiding such decisions; and in these organizations where indecision stays the course, the question is this...

Is your marketing helping your company reach it’s full business potential?

The answer is not based on your company’s line card, but on its line of work: What is your company really good at and do your customers know this?

JB

The ultimate value of social media

The first step B2B corporations have taken regarding social media has been to establish employee social media policies. It was as though corporate counsel ran down the hall to the CEO and the CIO and without inviting HR, PR or marketing into the discussion, they decided the first thing to be done about social media was to protect the company from its use or misuse by employees.

Such a rush to "policy" exposes the lack of marketing and branding in many B2B organizations. In those few B2B companies that know the importance of becoming aligned on purpose, value delivery and greater business potential, leadership is now realizing that social media is a huge brand-building opportunity.

The wise approach is not to govern social media, but to encourage it and capitalize on it. Nevertheless, you can bet that this year most B2B organizations will continue to walk the legal tightrope of social media policy making.

Their wiser competitors will do just the opposite.

JB

Is 3-D coming soon to a competitor near you?

3-D movies are becoming prolific and it’s about time. Those of us who grew up wearing the cheap cardboard frames with the crinkled and smeary lenses have long ago paid our dues. It was always more novelty than authenticity and that’s the difference today – authenticity.

The same can be said of our business, the development of B2B marketing communications for organizations in need of more authentic, three-dimensional identities - branding that can sharpen the vision of an organization and reveal a better business reality.

Just like the latest 3-D moviemaking, effective branding is effective storytelling, but it’s the authenticity of the customer’s experience that wins out.

Some organizations don't see this coming. They struggle because they lack clearly articulated brand identities. They sell themselves short, because they lack the vision to see beyond their products to the deeper needs of customers.

A customer sees such an organization as if through paper-framed lenses.
Until a competitor offers that customer a more authentic experience.

We are looking for a few good B2B leaders

You are out there somewhere. B2B leaders. You can see the greater potential of your organizations, because you can see beyond the features and benefits of your products to the deeper problems and aspirations of your customers. Or at least, you are determined to find out.

This weekend, you have been thinking about how to align your underachieving organizations into up-and-coming companies, and there’s a chance you will succeed in leading this transformation, because you understand the roles of insight and communication, you can discern enterprise from entropy, brand transparency from brand identity, and you will not sacrifice collective progress for individual preservation.

Happily, you are surrounded by a world of B2B non-leaders.

B2B non-leaders have you outnumbered by a preposterous percentage. They occupy the C-level offices of your weakest competitors and on this fine Sunday morning, these non-leaders are not thinking about organizational alignment, mission and message, greater value delivery or something called brand identity.

B2B non-leaders were never prepared for this - an economy that separates go-with-the-flow non-leaders from B2B leaders who get it.

In the months ahead, non-leaders in your marketplace will continue to exercise indecision on the most vital of issues. Uncomfortable in matters of vision, mission and message, and with a shallow understanding of their organizations' greater value potential, they will remain intolerant of the vagaries of “insight” and “communication” and organizational behavior. They will continue to read the tea leaves of recovery and find no confidence or courage there. They will dig deeper into their fox holes even as the marketplace shifts miles away from them.

And in the coming year, as sure as the sun will set on this fine Sunday, with a little branding and marketing help your company will make their organizations obsolete.

Free enterprise. Let it be.

Our firm is looking for a few good B2B leaders.
So is America.

jb