November 20th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
The last class of the Continuing Professional Development put on by the Engineers Foundation of Ohio came in the form of two breakout sessions. I attended, “Marketing Your Professional Engineering Services.” Dr. Lynn Daily, professor of marketing at Capital University, gave the class. All in all, these are decent tips for any company.
The notes I took from this are as follows:
As competition moves from a single supplier to many suppliers of a service, companies follow a progression of concepts:
- Product Concept: Make what you want to make.
- Selling Concept: Convince people that they want what you make.
- Marketing Concept: Find customer, figure out what customer wants, and make what the customer wants.
Retail vs. Commercial: Retail is using a product for one’s own service, while commercial is using a product to sell one’s own services.
In order to sell services in a highly competitive atmosphere, a company may choose to participate in only certain market segments. Segments can (perhaps should) be measured even before a product is created. For example, outdoor magazine subscriptions may be an indicator of how popular your outdoor product may be. Segments should be measurable, substantial (sufficiently profitable), accessible, differentiable (responds differently to different product mixes), and actionable (able to be served effectively).
Understanding target segments is key. Find out how customers research and decide to handle their problems. People spend more time searching for a solution as their involvement and risk go up. If they already have an answer in mind (and your goal is to be in their mind), they won’t spend as much time searching. Determine what evaluative criteria the target uses.
Image by monstro via Flickr
Don’t wait until the job is done to provide good customer service. Sometimes a mistake can be turned into a gain, if you recover from that mistake and compensate in more than just a satisfactory manner. Employees must be empowered to do those kind of recoveries.
Implement a client database if you haven’t already, including contact info, decision makers, previous issues, buy practices, and opportunities you could address.
Take all complaints seriously; if one bothers to complain, more than likely other people have been dissatisfied and just haven’t bothered to tell you.
When differentiating yourself from your competitors, note your points of parity, which are attributes you share, and points of difference, positive attributes about you that a client could not find in your competition. Position your company with these attributes, showing the customer how he can benefit from your superior attribute.
Expertise is highly variable and can’t be stored. People should be selected, highly trained, and highly motivated. Consider performance-based compensation.
November 20th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I am still waiting for the black helicopters!