Does a Silver Bullet Exist in Marketing?

We have observed a number of B2B companies trying to achieve sales growth using only one marketing tool. Think of the company who uses just direct mail to create new customers or the manufacturing firm that uses just manufacturer's reps to grow their business.

Most of the companies that restrict their marketing to only a limited number of tools seem to struggle. There is no silver bullet. Achieving significant growth requires the use of many tools in harmony in order to effectively reach a target market.

What is your experience? Do you know of any B2B businesses that rely upon only one tool and achieve real growth?

If so, we would like to hear from you. Drop us a line and share your story.

The Sales Learning Curve

I am approached nearly every week by young companies that want to accelerate revenue. Many lack a sales and marketing organization to drive growth and are searching for resources to help them reach their goals. For most of these firms they are in the early stages of a new business or about to launch a new product.

While these firms are anxious to realize "hockey stick" growth rates most are actually a long way from significant growth. The reason is due to the learning curve that rests before them. A number of potential issues that require interaction with customers must be addressed and resolved before growth can occur. These issues may include product fit within specific market segments, packaging and delivery issues, selling process steps and the like.

This learning has been dubbed the Sales Learning Curve by Mark Leslie, CEO of Veritas, the 5th largest software company. The SLC is an adaptation from the Manufacturing Learning Curve that says a number of units must be produced in order to gain manufacturing efficiency and reduce production costs.

The same principle applies to sales development in the form of learning about market and customer driven issues and how they impact sales acceleration.

Learn more about the SLC on another blog and see if it applies to your business.

Pricing Management Is BIG!

If you have not seen the front page Wall Street Journal article that was published March 27 on pricing management find a copy and read it. The article featured Cleveland based Parker-Hannifin Corporation and the huge improvement in financial performance that they realized as a result of better pricing management.

We are seeing more and more companies of all sizes embracing disciplined pricing strategies that drive margin lift. Parker Hannifen moved from a cost plus methodology of pricing its 800,000 parts to a value based approach that boosted operating income by $200 million since 2002.

There are several relatively simple and effective tools that can be employed to begin managing pricing better. The best place to start is to begin tracking the average prices on a regular and frequent basis. This will indicate whether prices are generally rising or falling. Until you can monitor prices effectively you are only guessing at the trends.

Tracking average prices casts a spotlight on pricing within the organization and will cause management to ask questions about price changes that will likely lead to better processes.