For those involved in designing great user experiences this is a must see TED talk by Daniel Kahneman (Israeli psychologist and Nobel laureate) on the very profound differences between our two self’s and what makes them happy.
- The experiencing self is the self that lives in the now (using this product is fun, I am enjoying this sales presentation, that feels good, I am having fun)
- The remembering self is the self that recalls experiences as stories. (I like using that product, I enjoyed that sales presentation, it felt good, I had fun)
Studies show that our 2 self’s have very different responses to the same event. So when designing a total user experience it is important to design the experience with both self’s in mind. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the last few years’ business-as-usual has suffered a mortal blow and I am not talking about social media. Its not dead yet, that will take at least a decade, but the writing is on the wall.
Ask an old retired sales person (you can find them on any golf course) what selling is about and they will tell you its about relationships, people prefer to buy from friends, from people like them, from people they trust. It’s been that way for a very long time.
50 years ago if you started a business you joined the local golf club, the lodge of your choosing and became active in the local church. Built a reputation as a trustworthy person and let others in your community know what services you offer.
Today if you have an interest in racing bikes for example you find those communities online, join in, build a reputation as a trustworthy person and let others in the community know what services you offer. Basically the same.
But there is a small difference, and it’s that small difference that is the mortal blow to business-as-usual. Read the rest of this entry »
At 108 years young Marmite has a thing or two to teach us about rejecting mediocrity, daring marketing and generating customer loyalty.
1902, Marmite comes into being, Peace arrives to the British Colonies with the end of the Boer War, happiness and trust is restored to the nation – from ‘The Historical Documents’
A good story
Burton on Trent in Staffordshire has a strong brewing heritage; The Marmite Food Extract Company was founded in 1902 to take advantage of the surpluses of brewers yeast in the town. They use the brewing by-product to create a tar-like, pungent paste with a powerful salty flavor. In 1909 all records of the formula were destroyed and a clandestine society called the Marmarati was created. They keep the secret of the formula and pass it from generation to generation. Read the rest of this entry »
The last studio visit went well, the field engineer brainstormed with the creative team on problems like GPU intensive blood splatter, how to efficiently splinter bone etc. standard B2B account management stuff.
We took the influencers and specialists out for a nice lunch in the harbor, shared war stories and generally strengthened the relationship.
On parting we agreed to check in with them every two months. If they need ANYTHING before that please call me, email support or post problems on the forum.. day or night, that’s what we’re here for.
Two months go by and my CRM system reminds me to call.
“Good you called; I have a list of problems that I have been compiling over the last 2 months with the team.”
Oh shit, my account has lice.. Read the rest of this entry »
Supply chain managers are very familiar with the concept of SPoF; It’s a simple concept often overlooked in areas like account management.
A Single Point of Failure (SPoF) is any part of a system that will stop the entire system from working when it fails.. not if it fails, when.
If you manage accounts for any length of time, pre or post sale you will have experienced the impact changes on the clients side can have.
Promotions, department changes, priority changes.. if you maintain a good relationship with the contact you will have as much notice of upcoming changes as they do and can probably still reach them after the change. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week I wrote about the importance of taking care of your customers, going that extra unnecessary mile to create a good customer experience. I suggested sending a customer care package when they purchased a digital product from you and that got me thinking about amazon.com – Earth biggest bookstore.
In 1995 I lived in Germany and reading English books was an expensive hobby. I would travel one hour by train to downtown Munich and visit the Englische Buchhandlung near Marienplatz. The selection was limited and there was a heavy markup over MSRP.
Then in 1995 Amazon.com opened its site for business. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a digital world and digital distribution is great; no cost of shipping, immediate and convenient gratification for the customer.. it’s a win, win. But there are still advantages to shipping a box, are you missing an opportunity?
Even before digital distribution many software companies had forsaken the box and printed documentation. From the beginning Alienbrain was shipped on a single CD with full searchable, indexed documentation included.
After requests from the sales team and some discussion around ROI we had a few prototypes mocked up and chose a design that fitted our needs. It was not a small or cheep box because we wanted it to hold: Read the rest of this entry »
