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June 27, 2007
Positive Marketing and Positive Sales
Seth Godin has a good post today about positive markeing versus negative marketing with respect to Verizon's attitude toward fighting the iPhone. This reminded me of an experience I had last year with a new system we were purchasing for work.
The system was an expensive hardware/software combination. But that isn't important. What is important is that there were multiple vendors competing, each with different marketing approaches. Two sales teams stick in my mind from this experience: one was very positive, one very negative.
The positive team emphasized their product's strengths. They listened to our needs and they tailored every presentation to how their product's features met our needs, or helped us solve a problem in a unique way. Aside from a brief comparison to the competition's products in our initial meeting, I don't think they mentioned their competition once.
The negative team spent nearly as much time denigrating (or attempting to) the competition's products as much as they did promoting their own. They would talk up a feature for a few minutes and then waste our time and theirs telling us about which of the competitors didn't have that same feature, or implemented it in an inferior way.
The problem with this approach--and I think this scales for big or small purchasing decisions--is that as an educated customer, I'm doing my own research. I'm talking to the competition. I'm seeing exactly what features they have and don't have. So when you're pitching your products to me, I don't want to hear your opinion about the competition--I want to hear about your product.
It's not hard to see which team was more pleasant to deal with. And ultimately, which team do you think won the contract? It was the team with the superior product, of course, whose features best met our needs. But do you suppose that if the negative team's product really met our needs and was really best of class that they would have felt the need to spend so much time trying to cut down the competition?
Posted by Dave! Permalink
June 21, 2007
Improving Tradeshows
So, I've been here at a large trade show in CA for the week, and I've noted somethings that would really improve the show and make it a better experience, for me--and others I'm sure...
1. Chairs. There is a dramatic shortage of places to sit. Part of this is by design, of course floor space is limited. But it was consistently a problem to get a seat to grab a bit to eat, or to look at the floor map, or to rummage through my bag for something. There was a huge area of seating... in the basement of the convention center. Away from everything else, including the food vendors. Really poor planning, if you ask me.
2. Wi-Fi. I am posting this from my Mac, via wi-fi. And I'm paying for it. Yes, in 2007, a major technology conference doesn't have free wi-fi. This is just idiotic. I went to a vendor party the other night, where a lot of money was spent on games, food and other crap. The vendor could have easily spent a little less on throw-aways, and instead, sponsored free wi-fi for the show. It's not like the vast majority of people here don't have laptops and the need to check e-mail. Yes, the show provides a "Cyber Cafe" for free--but in the days of POP/IMAP and laptops, this is pretty antiquated. Give us wi-fi already. Sheesh.
Posted by Dave! Permalink | Comments (1)
June 20, 2007
Ridiculous Disclaimers
I'm in California all this week for a conference, which so far has been kind of a bust. It's a regular annual technology thing, with some training seminars and a lot of vendor exhibitions. Unfortunately, there just haven't been many things I've seen here that I didn't already know about. The web and the speed of transmission of information has really changed what conferences should be, but that's for another post.
This post is about one of the training seminars. Now, keep in mind that most of the attendees at this conference are technology professionals. They make their living working with technology.
Today, I attended a session, which had typical PowerPoint handouts, but the second slide (after the title) was a huge "WARNING":
"Materials may not be recorded or copied or used for any for-profit purpose or any other event use without prior permission. Violators will be prosecuted."
First, the whole point of getting the information in the seminar is to use it for-profit: to expand your skills and increase your business. Now, I do realize that this disclaimer is really meant to try to discourage people from stealing the slides for their own presentations, but honestly, is this really necessary? More to the point, does the presenter think it's effective? It won't stop a real jackass from stealing the content, it doesn't really provide any legal protection (a simple copyright notice at the bottom would have worked) and it insults the intelligence of the rest of us.
Posted by Dave! Permalink
June 1, 2007
Professional Responsibility
While I'm spending the summer in Professional Responsibility, learning gems of ethical wisdom, like don't accept sex as a form of payment from your clients, don't steal their money, and don't fabricate evidence, TB Andrew is out there exposing people to an extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis. What a great PR machine for the legal profession.
So, let's see....
1. The guy knew he had TB before he left for Europe to get married.
2. He claims he didn't know it was the drug-resistant strain, but you know what? YOU STILL HAD TB, JACKASS.
3. But what does he do when he finds out it's a rare form that is really difficult to treat? He flies home. He's exposed at least two trans-Atlantic flights, and four connecting flights in Europe. How many lives has this jerk put at risk?
4. Oh, and just in case you thought our border security actually meant something, the custom agent ignores the computer pop-up warning to hold and treat him as contagious and just lets him through.
There is so much that disturbs me about this story, I don't even know where to start. First, I can't believe the complete, utterly selfish and completely unethical behavior of this jackass. He deserves to have his license to practice suspended at least, if not be disbarred. Second, if you had any illusions about airport security keeping us safe from terrorism, they should be shot to hell now.
Unreal.
Posted by Dave! Permalink | Comments (1)