I was fortunate enough to be involved with the launch of BlackBerry and Dyson in the UK. The really interesting thing about these products was that neither were successful at launch. The reason behind this was the fact that so many people didn't understand the true benefit of either product at their launch. Both were a real challenge to sell initially and we really had to work hard to get both off the ground.
So what did we do to really understand how to sell these products? Well, we learned very quickly that we had to really understand what our customers and consumers were really telling us about the products and the way they used them.
The two products were faced with slightly different challenges in their launch. Firstly, with Dyson, consumers really didn’t like the clear, see-through bin (this was a new innovation at the time) you could see the dirt that was collected as you used the vacuum cleaner, and this really put some consumer off. What we found is when we started demonstrating the model to retailer and talking them through the benefits it went from that position where they said, “we hate to see the dirt” to a position where they would say something like “oh, I love to see all of the dirt collected, it shows how much cleaner my carpet is over using my normal vacuum cleaner”. Seeing it from their perspective, seeing how they really valued that innovative clear bin allowed us to change the way that we engaged with consumers and positioned and sold the product. With BlackBerry it was slightly different. With BlackBerry we had an idea or thought that it might save executives (who it was aimed at) some time and effort during their working days. it was only when one of my clients who travelled to Germany phoned me to tell me about their experience that we really understood the true benefit. Their experience was that they had flown to Germany, and as they had got off the plane they’d instantly got all of their email on their BlackBerry. Sitting here today that feels like an everyday occurrence but back when we launched BlackBerry that was revolutionary. This was an absolutely fantastic story to hear, and we started to really understand the benefit for our clients. If you compare that with their previous experiences of flying to Germany and wanting to get access to their email – what he would have done was got off the plane, got in a taxi travelled to his hotel, booked in, got to his room, plugged his laptop into a phone line to dial up(!) left it dialling into the UK to try and connect to his email, then gone and got his dinner. With any luck he may be able to respond to one or two emails that had downloaded before he went to bed. With the BlackBerry, he had responded to all of his important emails before even got to the hotel. That meant productivity went through the roof for that executive. In both cases what we learned was we need to see things that our clients, that our consumers, that our customers really benefit from. So how will this help you? Look at your clients and understand why they chose to spend money with you. One really good bit of advice is to ask people who don’t choose your product or service and ask them why they didn’t choose you. That will give you some (limited) insight and some indication. A really great piece of advice is to speak to clients who have spent money with you. Take some time to understand what made them buy that specific product or service from you. So, how might you use that insight and information? Well, if you learn from our example here at New Results, we started asking lots of clients why they chose us and what they really enjoyed about our training services, and it turns out one of the things that they really loved (when we delivered face to face training) was the fact that we didn’t use PowerPoint. Everything was hands on, discovery led, experiential learning and they really, really enjoyed that. We’d never thought of that as a particular differentiator for the business, but once we learnt that, once we had that feedback from a number of different businesses we started positioning that as part of our marketing and sales mix. People really picked up on during our discussions and it helped us win even more business. I just wonder, from your perspective what are the hidden little nuggets of information, what are the real buying reasons and the reasons that your clients buy your product or service that you could learn from. Armed with this information you can position this with others to help them to understand the real benefit of working with and buying from you.
It’s a great way of really understanding the value that you offer and the benefits that you bring. When you understand that point it’s a key to unlocking some new marketplaces, some new approaches that will really help you with business growth. Oh and one last thought, if you are sat reading this thinking price was a big differentiator, you are right. Both Dyson and BlackBerry were much higher prices that their competitors.
Dysons retailed at three times the average price of a vacuum cleaner at their launch, and last time I looked they were going up in price (Argos Dyson Ball Animal 2 Bagless Upright Vacuum £299!), how many consumer products have gone up in price over the last 20 years? Wouldn’t it be great to really understand the benefit to your clients so you can achieve the true price of products and services?
