"No, the product does not create demand"

Mais um conjunto de mensagens preciosas 

"Demand-side sales is about pulling people toward progress. Flipping this lens flips the role of salesperson from icky used car salesperson to a helper. When you get away from pushing your product, you start to make people feel like you’re helping them; you’re their concierge. You’re no longer the used car salesperson. A great salesperson listens first and then helps.

...

The very foundation of demand-side sales is being helpful, empowering, curious, and creative; you must understand why people do what they do.

...

Principle #1: People buy for their own reasons. It’s more about progress than about your product or service. Your job as a salesperson is to help people make progress on their terms; it’s about more than selling and making the “almighty dollar.” Approaching sales from this mindset will set you apart as a great salesperson.

...

Principle#3 The struggle creates demand. The struggling moment is the seed for all sales. Where do people struggle? Helping people make progress is embedded in finding these struggling moments. So, find the struggling moment!

...

Myth #1: Supply creates demand; build it and they will buy it. No, the product does not create demand. [Moi ici: Quantas vezes ouvem os políticos dizerem-nos o contrário?] However well-meaning your aspirations, they are not enough to sell your product and cause people to make the necessary tradeoffs. People want to be their definition of best, not yours. It’s about fitting your product into their life by understanding the progress they are trying to make.

...

Myth #3: Sales is about convincing people, and you can convince anyone to do anything. Salespeople don’t convince people to buy, people convince themselves. They buy for their own reasons. The customer defines the value. You need understand them first, and then your product and how it fits into their lives."

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta.

Um arrepio...

Ao longo dos anos tenho aqui relatado a minha experiência e preocupação com a lentidão da mudança nas empresas portuguesas. Por exemplo, falta de fogo no rabo.

Também por isso receio o efeito dos lay-off: uma pausa que não pressiona as empresas a reformarem-se. Na verdade: Não vai ser nenhum 'lay-off' que as vai preparar para essa transição.

Por isso, assim que ouvi este trecho até me arrepiei:

"The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of business, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the urgent need for companies to transform. In fact, the crisis has underscored that need. Most organizations have already launched rapid measures in response to the situation. The challenge now is to build on these measures and develop longer-term, comprehensive initiatives to reposition the company for the future—which may feel like a permanent state of emergency."

Daqui, "How Transformative CEOs Lead in a Crisis": 

"many companies across industries and geographic markets now need to stabilize revenue, unlock growth through new digital sales channels, and reduce costs. 

...

Because the pace of change in business has accelerated, companies can no longer spend six months plotting a transformation and then several years implementing it. Instead, companies need to take immediate steps to begin delivering results, send cash to the bottom line, and fund future initiatives.

Top-performing organizations don’t rely on just cost cuts to free up capital—instead, they also improve capital efficiency and deliver quick wins to boost revenue. 

...

To be clear, cost reductions are often a critical step, but they can never stand alone. Over the long term, revenue growth has a greater impact on transformation success—contributing, on average, nearly half of cumulative value creation after five years.[Moi ici: Ainda na sexta-feira passada tive conversa com empresa que passou pela redução dos custos. E debatemos várias alternativas para aprender com os 4/5 clientes novos que ganharam nos últimos dois anos para perceber como procurar ainda mais clientes para aumentar vendas]

...

[Moi ici: Outra tema abordado nessa mesma conversa. O meu velho exemplo de Zapatero] New CEOs perform better in transformations. In fact, a new CEO can boost the odds of a successful transformation by 7 percentage points, on average. Why do new CEOs perform better? Because they take an outsider’s view of the business, with no legacy bias, and they are willing to take bold steps to shake up established ways of thinking.

Incumbent CEOs and management teams, therefore, cannot afford to be complacent and maintain the status quo. Instead, they must be somewhat paranoid and continuously take a fresh look at the business. Or, as we say, “If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway.”"

 

No reino da treta

Esta semana, numa formação online sobre auditorias internas da qualidade, ao abordar o tema das acções correctivas, e de como normalmente são mal trabalhadas, dei um exemplo que encontrei numa empresa não há muito tempo.

Objectivo da qualidade: Reduzir os atrasos nas entregas

Desempenho 2019: 74%

Meta para 2020: > 90%

Plano de acção: blábláblá

Quando li o plano de acção, mentalmente fiquei assim:

O plano resumia-se a uma simples frase do género: Vamos exortar e pressionar os fornecedores de matérias-primas e componentes a serem mais cumpridores.

Perante um problema alguém lança uma acção para calar a consciência, ou enganar os auditores, ou comer os eleitores. Qual o racional por trás da acção? Que factos suportam a acção?

Na semana passada sublinhei:

 "This is how naive I was in the beginning. I’d see a problem, you’d pick up the rope and say ‘hey I can solve this problem’. And little did I realize that there was just a big mountain of crap on the other side. The reality is that there’s a simplistic approach to how we think. Sometimes people just dive in and do the first thing off the top of their head. [Moi ici: Este é o erro que encontro sistematicamente nas empresas. Por isso, a minha checklist de auditor tem duas perguntas sobre acções correctivas: Desenvolveram alguma acção correctiva? É uma verdadeira acção correctiva, ataca a causa?] And what I’ve realized is you have to get through the complexity to get to simplicity on the other side. [Moi ici: Isto é o que sistematicamente falha, poucos passam pela complexidade] It’s one of the only quotes I’ve memorized and when I heard it, it really rocked me which is Oliver Wendell Holmes who is a Supreme Court justice from 1902 said “I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I’d give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity”."

O que eu vejo muitas vezes é isto:

Perante um problema salta-se para uma solução.

• app obrigatória
• máscaras obrigatórias
• recolher obrigatório

O que eu deveria ver era:

Um forte investimento na análise dos sintomas...

Ontem alguém escreveu-me no Twitter:

"60% das contaminações dão-se no trabalho, em família e reuniões entre amigos. Lugares onde as pessoas relaxam-se"

Não acredito!

Leio estas coisas e penso logo nesta estória:

Por estes dias quase não tenho ouvido a rádio e vejo um pouco de TV à noite e só se fala na solução app/máscara/recolher.

Confesso que fico parvo com isto. Por que é que ninguém fala do metro junto à câmara de Gaia às 7h30 da manhã? Distanciamento social é aquilo?

Acho cómico querer proibir um casamento com mais do que x pessoas e, depois ter um autocarro com x pessoas, depois ter uma carruagem de metro com 1,7x pessoas e ninguém diz nada!

Quanto tempo é que alguém circula no metro? Quantas pessoas circulam em simultâneo mais de 15 minutos?

Esta gente não está habituada a trabalhar com base em dados, trabalha no reino da retórica, no reino da conversa, no reino da ilusão. Quando a realidade lhes vem bater à forta desmascara-os facilmente. BTW, é por isso que os políticos gostam de acções sobre o ambiente. Dificilmente, a realidade virá pedir-lhes contas enquanto estão no poder.

BTW, por que é que fiquei como o capitão Haddock? Porque antes numa conversa mais informal tinham -me contado isto:

Foram as suas próprias decisões que levaram aos 74%

Será que faz sentido medir o indicador para todo o tipo de cliente? Não será de incluir só aqueles que valorizam isso muito e que vocês deliberadamente não querem desapontar?

Are you a helper?

"Unfortunately, most salespeople are not taught to think of themselves as a helper. They are taught to think about their product, the what, with all its features and benefits, and the people, the who, as a set of demographics. But they’re missing the five W’s and two H’s—who, what, when, where, why, how, and how much. Salespeople have been trained to only focus on a small portion of the equation. In fact, it seems many salespeople are operating under the marketing framework"

Deixar isto cair bem fundo. Antes de apanhar com o resto:

"When brand equity became more valuable than cashflow, marketers took the lead. It’s a fundamental powershift that’s relegated salespeople to order takers, not helping to generate demand. Marketers are expected to create demand, and sales is to follow the leads generated. It’s a flawed approach that sets salespeople up to fail. Demand is only generated by a customer’s struggling moment. If there is no struggle, there is no demand.

...

It’s the lack of resources that’s turned traditional supply-side sales into an icky business. Salespeople are put under tremendous pressure, everything they do is viewed through the lens of the product and profit. The focus is on the “church of finance,” where cashflow is king and budget forecasting is center stage to keep banks and investors happy. When the “church of finance” is driving decisions, they’re not made in the customer’s best interest. As a result, salespeople end up promoting and creating endless ways in which to push people to buy their product or service before they’re ready. The reality is the push mentality does more harm than good—failed expectations and buyer’s remorse."

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta.

Remember

"Remember that the push of the situation and the magnetism of the new solution need to be stronger than the anxieties and habit before someone will buy. 

...

Remember, the most vulnerable people in your portfolio are your current clients because you’ve learned to ignore them.

...

Remember, value is created and money is made by solving the anxiety side of the equation.

...

Remember, people are not paying attention until they see the problem in their own lives."

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta.

"Contrast creates value"

 "Active looking is asking yourself, “What are the alternatives for progress?”

...

Ultimately, this is where people build their ideal solution—a target. It’s important that the buyer has contrast; without contrast it becomes almost impossible to decide. 

...

The outcome of active looking is that the buyer knows what they want. A “time wall” has pushed them into deciding. It’s a trigger mechanism that forces them to choose, rather than endlessly look.

...

When deciding, people must make tradeoffs: What’s most important? What’s least important? This is where priorities are set, and value codes determined. It’s a triangle between time, cost, and quality. No one can have it all! People set their expectations here and will base their satisfaction on the criteria they set.

...

Chad decides he cares most about trust and flexibility over cost. Chad trusts the new bank because they are willing to be upfront and honest and tell him no directly rather than giving a vague maybe about what they can and can’t do. Additionally, one of the contacts is a known colleague. They also provide Chad with options; they don’t try to define value for Chad. Ultimately, Chad chooses flexibility over cost. It’s a great example of tradeoffs. No one else gave him a more expensive option to buy ease of use. Why not? Probably because they didn’t think he would take it. You do not know what your customer wants, provide contrast."

Recordar:

"Contrast creates value

Providing an interviewee with contrast leads to greater understanding. Have them tell you why they decided against an alternative path. I use a bracketing technique to help provide contrast where neither option is right, and they need to elaborate."

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta.

Automatização ...

Imagem retirada do semanário Expresso deste Sábado.

Como são as empresas portuguesas? Pequenas e médias empresas.

Como competem nos mercados internacionais? É porque têm o preço mais baixo? 

Não, é porque apostam na flexibilidade, rapidez e diferenciação.

Recordo a hipótese Mongo.

O que é que Mongo requer? Flexibilidade e rapidez!

O que é que a automatização mal feita prejudica? A flexibilidade e a rapidez!

Recordar:

• Especulação sobre mais um falhanço da automatização (Novembro de 2019)
• Mongo e automatização - tanta treta que se ouve (Março de 2019)
• Robôs e Mongo (Janeiro de 2019)
• Contrarian (Janeiro de 2019)

 

"The irrational becomes rational with context."

Bob Moesta em "Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” repete:

"Context creates meaning

The irrational becomes rational with context. When the answers feel irrational, it’s typically because you don’t know the whole story."

O meu radar funcionou assim que li no JN de ontem "Fãs de metal levam a recorde na fábrica de cassetes da Maia":

"O entusiasmo dos “metaleiros” tem permitido a recuperação de um hábito que está em contraciclo com a revolução digital: ouvir música em cassete. A Edisco – a única fábrica do género na Península Ibérica – fica dentro da zona residencial de Águas Santas, na Maia, e tem duplicado anualmente a produção na última década. Depois de ter fabricado 150 mil unidades no ano passado, já superou esta marca neste ano e vai registar em 2020 o recorde dos últimos 15 anos. O segredo do sucesso está no passa-palavra e “em falarem de nós nos fóruns.

...

Em média, são produzidas séries de 300 unidades, muitas vezes esgotadas ainda nas pré-vendas. “Chegamos a ver cassetes na internet à venda por 80 euros e que tinham um preço original de 5 euros.”

...

Na Europa, há fábricas de cassetes em Inglaterra, Polónia e Bulgária. A diferença é que a Edisco usa máquinas industriais, o que encurta o prazo de entrega de seis para apenas duas semanas."

Recordar o percurso do vinil, do filme a preto e branco, dos catálogos em papel, dos jogos de tabuleiro, das livrarias independentes, e outras cassetes, 

No entretanto, deixem-nos a nós em paz

Na passada sexta-feira tive mais uma das conversas oxigenadoras ao almoço. 

A certa altura o meu parceiro referiu-me um truque que descobriu e lhe dá ânimo para seguir em frente: em vez de se concentrar no grande salto em frente, foca-se na pequena progressão pessoal ou no seu contexto que pode ser feita dia após dia. 

Enquanto o ouvia na minha mente recordava a frase mais do que conhecida de Kennedy:

"não perguntes o que o teu país pode fazer por ti; pergunta o que tu podes fazer pelo teu país"

Por que escrevo isto agora? Porque acabo de tentar ler "48 líderes exigem medidas fortes no OE2021" (parte II) (parte III). Um desfile doentio ...

"É fundamental que o Estado perceba que não compete aos operadores privados fazer este investimento sozinhos, 

...

O OE2021 devia conter medidas de apoio ao emprego e ao comércio

...

Primeiro, o Estado devia intervir na área dos investimentos,

...

O papel do Estado deveria ser o de 

...

É expectável que o OE2021 possa aportar medidas que permitam revitalizar tecido económico, empresas e empregabilidade, minimizando os impactos da crise

...

Esta revolução obriga a investimento em I&D que precisa de apoios públicos, pois os montantes são elevados e o prazo de recuperação muito longo

...

É da maior importância que o OE2021 tenha foco particular no estímulo ao consumo

..."

Eu confesso, já estou numa outra fase... neste soberbo podcast fui levado a recordar um velho costume do passado: Os Hunos cercaram Constantinopla. As muralhas era imponentes e a cidade tinha muita água e mantimentos. Por fim, os Romanos do Oriente e os Hunos entenderam-se, a cidade pagou um montante e os Hunos deixaram-nos em paz. Algo que os Romanos do Ocidente faziam e fizeram por centenas de anos para manter os bárbaros do outro lado do Reno.

Por isso:

Caro Joaquim, já não consigo ter esse espírito. Prefiro que eles, os do costume, roubem, entretenham-se em projectos mirabolantes e, no entretanto, deixem-nos a nós, a microeconomia longe de lesboa, em paz. Roubem, mas não atrapalhem. Roubem, mas não compliquem

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) September 25, 2020

 

Cada vez mais a nomenklatura faz-me ver a semelhança com os reinos que pagavam um imposto aos hunos para não serem invadidos e arrasados.

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) September 28, 2020

O truque do meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras é adequado a este tempo...

A cláusula van Hallen nas fábricas portuguesas

 Há dias o amigo D. Pedro IV recordou-me a clássica estória sobre a cláusula van Hallen.

Na sexta-feira estive numa fábrica onde, mais uma vez, me contaram um episódio típico do calçado em Portugal.

Uma ficha técnica segue para a produção com toda a informação necessária. As pessoas na produção, porque não estão habituadas a ler, porque estão habituadas a seguir ordens, não olham para a ficha técnica. Pensam:

- Ah! já fizemos este modelo. Eu sei como é!

O que  não sabem, porque não lêem a ficha técnica, é que este modelo, porque é para um cliente diferente, em vez de uma sola preta, leva uma sola azul, ou em vez de uma fivela dourada, leva uma fivela prateada.

Ao ouvir o episódio recordei a minha lição sobre as promessas de prémio nos relatórios. Depois de ler uma estória num livro de Tom Peters apliquei-a na minha situação. Tinha entrado para uma empresa, e foi-me dito que tinha de escrever um relatório mensal em inglês, durante o primeiro ano, com o relato das minhas actividades nesse mês. Ao fim de um ano escrevi algo deste género no referido relatório mensal:

"Com este relatório, finalizo os 12 relatórios mensais solicitados aquando da minha entrada para a empresa. Assim, deixarei de elaborar este relatório a menos que o contrário me seja solicitado."

Passados uns meses o director-geral a propósito de não sei o quê disse-me:

- Ó Carlos Cruz você deixou de escrever os relatórios mensais...

Aí, contei-lhe o que tinha escrito no décimo segundo relatório. Ele ficou vermelho e começou a rir-se:

- Agora é que você me apanhou!

Tom Peters apresentava um teste para saber se um trelatório era lido por alguém, escrever algures no meio do relatório:

"Entrega-se uma nota de x dólares a quem a vier pedir a fulano x"

O que propus ao meu interlocutor na fábrica de calçado foi começar a introduzir aleatoriamente a mesma mensagem nas fichas técnicas:

"Entrega-se uma nota de 5 euros a quem a vier reclamar com base nesta ficha técnica!"

Isto é uma correcção, não uma acção correctiva. Uma acção correctiva passará por um trabalho de fundo que crie pessoas habituados a espírito crítico nas linhas de produção.

"what is progress for people?"

 

 "we try to make larger markets and try to lean things out, but I believe that one of the reasons we have no growth is because nobody's helping people make progress and progress is defined as saving money or being more efficient, or being more effective, but not about doing something something better and different and so I believe that one of the things that we have to really work on in the future is understanding what does progress look like, what is you know at some point, where we all going and so to me I spend a lot of now... I'll say in the business I have to really try to define what is progress for people." 

Outro podcast muito bom, cheio de sumo - "Understanding Your Customer & Defining Progress - Interview with Bob Moesta" 

"you have to get through the complexity to get to simplicity on the other side"

 "This is how naive I was in the beginning. I’d see a problem, you’d pick up the rope and say ‘hey I can solve this problem’. And little did I realize that there was just a big mountain of crap on the other side. The reality is that there’s a simplistic approach to how we think. Sometimes people just dive in and do the first thing off the top of their head. And what I’ve realized is you have to get through the complexity to get to simplicity on the other side. It’s one of the only quotes I’ve memorized and when I heard it, it really rocked me which is Oliver Wendell Holmes who is a Supreme Court justice from 1902 said “I wouldn’t give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I’d give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity”."

Trecho precioso!

Pensei logo na quantidade de empresas que apresenta planos simples para atingir objectivos ambiciosos sem nunca passar pela fase da complexidade

 

Trecho retirado de "The 5 Skills Of An Innovator | Bob Moesta, The ReWired Group | BoS USA 2018" 

"creating the space in the brain"

 

"Through the years we’ve uncovered the six stages a buyer must walk through before making a purchase:

First Thought—creating the space in the brain

Passive Looking—learning

Active Looking—seeing the possibilities

Deciding—making the trade-offs and establishing value

Onboarding—the act of doing the JTBD, meeting expectations and delivering satisfaction and value

Ongoing Use—building the habit

...

When conducting interviews, we imagine the events in their life like huge dominoes falling. We need to understand the buyer at a very granular level. What happened that made them say, “Today’s the day I am going to…”? We need to understand causality. What are the events which pushed and pulled them to move forward or backward? It is an important concept. The customer has a certain set of systems for how they buy, and our process needs to feed their world to help them make progress. So when interviewing, we continue until we can imagine the dominoes in their life tipping over, moving them along the timeline.

...

Once you have the first thought, you’ve opened up the space in your mind for the information. Without this first thought there is no demand.

...

Four ways to create a first thought

• Ask a good question…and not give an answer
• Tell a story
• Give a new metric
• State the obvious"

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta.

An EMS as a portfolio of projects

 Because you make art you become an artist not the other way around.

While implementing an environmental management system (EMS) it is very easy for me to remember ISO 9000:2015 definition of management system and think about an EMS as a portfolio of projects aligned with the strategic orientation and with the purpose of improving the interaction of an organization with the environment.

So, instead of an EMS that also generates improvement projects you can have a set of improvement projects that constitute, that give body to an EMS. Let us see how:

You go into reality and you determine the environmental aspects and impacts (clause 6.1.2). 

You go into reality and you determine relevant interested parties and you determine their relevant needs and expectations (clause 4.2)

Based on the environmental aspects you determine the mandatory compliance obligations (clause 6.1.3).

Based on the relevant needs and expectations of relevant interested parties you determine the voluntary commitments that your organization will assume and treat as mandatory compliance obligations (clause 6.1.3).

Perform an evaluation of compliance (clause 9.1.2) to determine any situation of partial or total non-compliance.

Any situation of total or partial non-compliance, considering the environmental policy commitment to fulfill compliance obligations (clause 5.2 d)) can be part of an environmental objective (clause 6.2.1) to improve performance. Environmental objectives should be communicated (clause 7.4) and should be translated into an action plan (clause 6.2.2).

Some situations of total compliance, considering the environmental policy commitment to continual improvement (clause 5.2 e)) can be translated into an action plan (clause 6.1.4)

Each environmental action plan (clause 6.1.4 or clause 6.2.2):

• may need investments that must be approved and implemented
• may be victim of risks (clause 6.1.1) that may generate undesirable results or prevent the organization from meeting desired results. Emergency situations (clause 8.2) must be determined, prevented and a response tested and set in standby
• may give birth to new or improved practices (clause 8.1)
• may change people’s responsibilities and authorities (clause 5.3)
• may change the set of instructions and records needed (clause 7.5) and the competence requirements (clause 7.2) for those working in the environmental management system

Then, go again back to reality to check the effectiveness of all those actions: check the environmental performance.

• Monitor environmental performance (clause 9.1.1)
• Treat any non-conformity and evaluate the opportunity to develop a corrective action (clause 10.2)
• Evaluate performance at the management review (clause 9.3) and decide about continual improvement (clause 10.3).

So, just working with a set of projects allows an organization to work with almost all clauses of ISO 14001:2015:

• 4.1 - 4.2 - 4.3 - 4.4
• 5.1 - 5.2 - 5.3
• 6.1.1 - 6.1.2 - 6.1.3 - 6.1.4
• 6.2.1 - 6.2.2
• 7.1 - 7.2 - 7.3 - 7.4 - 7.5
• 8.1 - 8.2
• 9.1.1 - 9.1.2 - 9.2 - 9.3
• 10.1 - 10.2 - 10.3

Pena que não seja promovida por gente com skin-in-the-game!

Na semana passada ao passar na A1 a norte de Santarém tive ocasião de ver aquele triste espectáculo do olival superintensivo. Como não recordar "Azeite e Trás-Os-Montes".

Por isso, ao ler "Vimioso e Bragança querem valorizar oliveira Santulhana tradicionalmente desprezada" fiquei meio dividido: Agradado pela ideia e pelo que ela representa, mas preocupado por quem a promove.

"O Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB) vai dedicar investigação a uma variedade de oliveira tradicionalmente desprezada, mas que se tem revelado pela qualidade dos azeites produzidos nos concelhos de Vimioso e Bragança.

Os dois municípios formalizaram esta sexta-feira uma parceria com a academia para fazer a caracterização e valorização da oliveira Santulhana, originária do concelho de Vimioso e praticamente circunscrita a este e ao município vizinho de Bragança.

...

É uma variedade que dá uns azeites particulares, que tradicionalmente não se consideravam azeites de muita qualidade, mas que o trabalho que temos vindo a fazer no politécnico em torno dos azeites da nossa região tem revelado que esta variedade tem um grande potencial de dar azeites de muita qualidade”, explicou.

...

Os azeites produzidos com esta variedade de azeitona “são muito frutados, com característicos aromáticas muito particulares e que os tornam particularmente apreciados, sobretudo nos nichos de elevada qualidade”, segundo disse."

Pena que não seja promovida por gente com skin-in-the-game! 

"Great sales begins with understanding the JTBD by your customer and the progress they are trying to make"

"Part of the “Five Whys” is to take a step back and not talk about what the customer wants from the solution perspective. For example, people might say I want the car door to be easy to open and close. Now, if you focus on the door, you have a limited set of solutions. As opposed to looking at it more broadly and thinking about making it easier to get in and out of the car generally. Now you are not just looking at the door but the placement of the seatbelt, etc., because you stop assuming you know the solution. It’s about seeing the bigger picture.
We use this methodology when interviewing our customers to get to the root of the problem they are trying to solve. Companies are selling drills instead of holes because they do not ask why enough times. They sit in boardrooms thinking of their product’s features and benefits and fail to see how it fits into their customer’s lives because they simply fail to ask why. You cannot design the way your customer makes progress; you need to understand their definition of progress and design your process around it. People don’t buy products; they hire them to make progress in their lives.
...
Let’s define JTBD. It starts when people are in a struggling circumstance, and they want to make progress.
...
building their solution starts with understanding their situation and why they are thinking about making progress in the first place, as well as what their vision of progress looks like.
...
Eliminating the struggle is not progress, them overcoming the struggle is progress. Both pieces are critical; the key to understanding causation is found in the circumstance and the outcome. Value is relative to your circumstance and determined by where you start compared to where you end. Circumstance is a big part of understanding causation. Their circumstance is a reference point for their progress, without understanding their starting place you cannot design their progress.
Great sales begins with understanding the JTBD by your customer and the progress they are trying to make: What is the situation they are in? What’s the outcome they seek? What are the tradeoffs they are willing to make? We do this by interviewing people who’ve purchased your product or services and understanding why. And why is relative to what’s going on in their life that caused them to say, “Today’s the day…” But it’s not an imagined customer or persona as we explained in chapter one, it’s real buyers. And the why you are looking for has nothing to do with your features and benefits. It’s about the customer and the progress they are trying to make in their life. To build a meaningful understanding of why people buy, we must create language, a story, and a model of their struggling moment."

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta.

"Demand-side selling starts with the struggling moment"

 

 "Buying is very different than selling. The best sales process mimics the progress that people are trying to make in their lives. Selling is clearly a supply-side perspective, while buying sits on the demand-side.

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What’s so special about their approach? It’s a worldview of selling from the customer’s vantage point, which we call demand-side selling.

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Because the supply-side is so worried about efficiency and effectiveness, it’s become all about building one model that works for many people. But one size does not fit all! Aiming for average hurts customer satisfaction, because when you strive for average you end up pleasing no one.

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Supply-side: The focus is on the product or service and its features and benefits. How will I sell it? Who needs my product?

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Demand-side: The focus is on understanding the buyer and the user. How do people buy and how do they make progress? What’s causing them to make a purchase? You design your go-to-market strategy around the buyer’s worldview, not the product. You are looking at the world through a real buyer’s eyes. It’s understanding value from the customer-side of the world, as opposed to the product-side of the world. Demand-side selling is understanding what progress people want to make, and what they are willing to pay to make that progress. Our product or services are merely part of their solution. You create pull for your product because you are focused on helping the customer. Demand-side selling starts with the struggling moment. It’s the theory that people buy when they have a struggling moment and think, “Maybe, I can do better.

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Traditional economics thinks supply and demand are connected. But we would say that demand is independent of supply. Demand is about a fundamental struggle. Supply and demand are two completely different perspectives in sales.

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The struggling moment is the seed for all new sales.

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Companies get sucked into thinking about the features the customer wants, as opposed to the outcomes they’re seeking. It’s the basic premise of cause and effect. Understanding the context by which people value your product will make it easier for you to understand how to sell your product. Only your customer can determine your value!"

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta. 

E a vida do cliente?

 "Every company believes it is customer-centric. However, most of them are product- and service-centric first, focusing on how to enhance their offerings (e.g., adding services to gas stations) rather than putting themselves in their customers’ shoes (and realizing that people want to avoid the gas station altogether).

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Often customers have difficulty articulating the problem they are trying to solve. Therefore, it is critical to dig deeper to understand the root cause of customers’ challenges.

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Understand customers’ problems

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Identify pain points

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Look beyond your product

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Mapping customer journeys has become a norm in the industry. However, almost every company starts and ends its consideration of the journey with its product [Moi ici: Um excelente ponto!] — say a car or a mortgage. This can miss what’s driving customers in the first place, which can be highly useful in understanding consumer motivation and potential opportunities to add value."

A service-dominant logic usa esta figura:

É voltar a Richard Normann e a:

É tão fácil esquecer, ou ignorar a esfera da vida do cliente...

 

Trechos retirados de "Are You Really Innovating Around Your Customers’ Needs?"

"The struggling moment is the seed for all innovation!"

 "A sales funnel based on the probability someone will buy, without understanding what causes them to buy, made no sense to me. In my experience, customers bought on their terms. I didn’t convince them to do anything; they convinced themselves. It was their moment of struggle that became the seed that caused customers to switch to my product or service. We are all creatures of habit, and we will keep doing what we have been doing unless we have that struggling moment. So I flipped the lens, stopped trying to push my product, and started to understand what caused people to pull new things into their lives

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There’s a different way to sell, and it starts with helping people make progress.

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JTBD is the theory that people don’t buy products, they hire them to make progress in their life.

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Great salespeople are real people: they ask questions, they listen, they learn, and they help you make progress in your life. Salespeople help customers solve problems and make progress in their life. Instead of pushing their product, they represent their product and how it fits into your life. Sales is about perspective—think concierge, mentor, or a coach, not an order taker. It’s about looking through your customer’s eyes, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear, and understanding what they mean. And there’s nothing icky about helping people. Period! The world could use a little more help.

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The struggling moment is the seed for all innovation!

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great salespeople don’t sell; they help. They listen, understand what you want to achieve, and help you achieve it. A better title would be “concierge.

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And you’ll learn it’s not about you, it’s about their progress. It will teach you to listen more intently, be more curious, and truly understand what your customers are saying."

Trechos retirados de “Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress” de Bob Moesta. 

Lucro vs treta

Esta semana mais uma vítima, não da COVID, mas de um modelo de negócio que na minha opinião (conservador financeiro nos negócios) nunca teria sucesso: "Undandy fica descalça. Uma das jovens promessas da indústria portuguesa de calçado entra em PER" (li algures que tem mais de 6 milhões de euros de dívida e que o principal credor é o Facebook).

Desde 2006 ou 2007 que escrevo por aqui: Profit is Sanity, Volume is Vanity

Neste postal de 2007 refiro a minha compra de “Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share: A Guide to Greater Profits in Highly Contested Markets” de Hermann Simon, Frank Bilstein e Frank Luby ... livros que nos marcam e nos moldam.

Entretanto, ontem à noite li, de Hermann Simon, "Le profit ne doit pas devenir un gros mot!". Malheureusement, ici au Portugal, cela s'est passé il y a longtemps.

Portugal é o país em que só se fala de distribuição, raramente se fala em criação de riqueza. Como não se cria riqueza suficiente distribui-se com base em endividamento que alguém terá de pagar, a bem ou a mal. E vai-se distribuindo cada vez menos por cada vez mais... E não estamos condenados... nunca esqueço esta descoberta do tempo do confinamento acerca da Toyota.

Hermann Simon receia que no seu próprio país a criação de riqueza se torne algo politicamente incorrecto. Assim, lançou recentemente um livro só em alemão sobre o tema.

"se déclarer pour la maximisation des profits constitue aujourd'hui une exhortation bien singulière sinon dangereuse à assumer publiquement pour un chef d'entreprise.

Le profit est pourtant la mesure la plus importante du succès d'une entreprise, a fortiori en situation de crise lorsqu'il est question de sa survie, comme aujourd'hui avec la pandémie de Covid-19.

Or, il tend à devenir un tabou du monde international des affaires, qui devient presque complexé de faire du profit.

...

Concéder à l'air du temps pourrait être dommageable, car maximiser le profit constitue la raison d'être économique de l'entreprise. Et contrairement à une idée reçue, il a une éthique. Nitin Nohria, doyen de la Harvard Business School, dit avec bon sens que « la première responsabilité éthique d'un chef d'entreprise est de faire des bénéfices ». Peter Drucker, le confirme : « Il n'y a pas d'opposition entre profit et responsabilité sociale. L'entreprise qui réalise un profit ne vole pas la société. »

Et il est funeste de tenter d'opposer les actionnaires aux parties prenantes comme on tente de le faire aujourd'hui. La maximisation du profit permet justement de créer un halo vertueux autour de l'entreprise, un « jeu à somme positive » car tout le monde gagne avec une entreprise profitable, qui investit, embauche… et alimente les caisses de l'Etat.

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Ce rapide diagnostic doit achever de nous convaincre qu'il faut absolument réorienter les entreprises vers la recherche de profitabilité afin de maximiser notamment l'effet des politiques de relance en France et outre-Rhin. Seule la réhabilitation du profit y parviendra…"