On deciding to make the right decisions…

A frequent observation being made now among B2B circles is that manufacturing is coming back and cash reserves are mounting, but that C-level managers will not be spending on new hires for a long time to come. Hence, manufacturing related unemployment will not recover for another year or two.

Add to this leaned-down, thinned-out, super-cautious state-of-mind the nation’s sluggish summer doldrums, the departure of congress and everyone else on vacation, the upcoming pre-election gridlock, and you have the perfect non-storm for decision making. We have business entropy, worst among weakly-lead manufacturers who further retreat from marketing and the marketplace, sensing this is a time of validation for their longstanding indifference to such "cost centers" as marketing and branding.

Such indecision will be argued as prudent, by those who simply cannot lead.

Not so, the remaining few. While most managers of manufacturing companies continue to play trench warfare, digging in so deep that they can no longer see the battlefield, savvy C-level leaders are using market insights, marketing and branding to change the field of play in their favor. And there are firms like ours that are helping these wiser leaders to grow their brands and their companies NOW.

Here are 5 ways we are helping them do it…

1. Bring forward the organization’s distinctive strengths
2. Understand how these strengths support market segments in need
3. Align the external Brand Image with the internal Brand Identity
4. Build momentum via internal/external communication strategies
5. Grow a culture wherein everyone makes the right decisions

jb

What do you do for a living?

It’s unfortunate how incapacitated B2B companies are when it comes to value definition and value recognition. Seeing as how these are the essential halves to every successful seller-buyer relationship, you would think every B2B organization would be skilled at both, but this is not the case.

We tell prospects what we make. We tell friends what we do.

Prospects are the strangers you meet at chamber of commerce breakfasts and other business networking events. Most prospects will give you about 20 seconds to articulate your elevator pitch and then it’s their turn. And so on, around the breakfast table. This gives you enough time to introduce yourself, explain that you are with company X and that your company offers product Y or service Z. According to ritual, no time is allowed for value definition or value recognition, and any attempts to do so are frowned upon by the table.

Friends and relatives on the other hand, actually care what you do for a living. Possibly unfamiliar with the rules of B2B networking, they are still listening after 20 seconds, long enough for you to further explain the value you and your company can create, value that can only be understood when the conversation is not limited to what you make, but what you can do.

Too bad B2B organizations have not learned to communicate the way most friends and relatives do. If they did, they would all be wiser buyers and sellers.

JB

Is your business model on the catwalk to success?

You hear the phrase “business model” being used more and more in B2B circles, as in, “So what’s your business model going to be after 2010?”

If you think social media was confusing, brace yourself. There are at least 25 kinds of “business models” and several new books on the subject will tell you more than you will ever need to know about “disruptive innovation” and why your company’s business model should be rebuilt.

Business model reconstruction is an appealing concept, because it implies a tangible, engineered approach to organizational change. But here’s the really interesting part -- central to the success of every business model is the process of building value definition and value recognition.

All ascending business models, those moving away from commoditization, are based on the achievement of deeper value definitions (brand identity) and value recognition (marketing). Segmentation matters here, based on profound insights into a segment’s values, beliefs and aspirations.

It seems that the more complicated B2B marketing gets, the more we return to the basics of branding and marketing. What will your business model be after 2010? The answer depends on whether your company’s leadership believes in the power of highly informed and strategic branding and marketing.

jb

Winning B2B manufacturers are leading execution

In the hard-edged world of mid-sized B2B manufacturing, corporate “culture” is a soft concept, one of those nebulous notions akin to “branding” or “marketing”. Most C-level managers here understand the disciplines of engineering, manufacturing and in-your-face feature-benefit selling. But they would rather delegate the “culture” stuff to HR.

HR meanwhile, often sees its role to be that of recruiting and managing the best and the brightest. The assumption being, if you employ the smartest people and give them adequate incentives to engineer, manufacture and sell, your company will be the best.

What’s missing from this approach is leadership, the kind that unifies people around company vision and mission (brand identity), the kind that welcomes intellectual honesty and true dialogue about solving deeper customer problems (marketing), leadership that moves the business strategically forward.

One of the first things a business leader will tell you is that it’s not the super-smart people who make a business succeed. It’s the focused and diligent believers who know how to execute.

American manufacturing needs leaders who expect more from their people, and people who expect more from their management.

jb