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Marketing with A3

admin — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 04:45:00 +0000

Most of our marketing centers on providing a solution for our customers. Everyone has a solution and just about all of them can be made to work for you, sound familiar! But is there anybody out there that can adequately define the problem? The definition of the problem is more important than the solution. We have always heard and most of us believe, “A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.” – Charles Kettering. It really is that simple. We must move our marketing and sales efforts from a solution-centric culture to a problem-centric culture. Sales and Marketing ultimate goal must be to become part of the problem defining culture of a customer or prospect.

Many organizations define their sales and marketing goals as a way of getting people to take actions to purchase their product or service. They are focused on selling the benefits of their product. Elaborate plans are designed to guide their action for today, tomorrow and in the future. This serves as a platform for their marketing goals. They might even send the goals through the SMART procedure to make sure that they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-specific. The problem with this is that it is mostly internally focused.

At the present time supply exceeds demand in most markets. Many companies are seeking new markets and extending their reach with a hope of more business. They focus on innovation in their own markets and/or adapting existing products to the new markets. These efforts seldom prove effective for the majority of us. Most of the time someone is already entrenched serving that need, new entrants just seems to drive prices down and reduce market share for all the players.

Marketing needs to be part of the problem solving process of their customers. What if your marketing processes seek to identify problems versus solution? What if you were seen as a diagnostic expert than a solution provider? What if you guaranteed to find the problem and collaborate on the solution? Would you build a more trusting and stronger relationship?

Marketing with A3 is my attempt to improve the problem solving process of Sales and Marketing. Using A3 in the marketing process will provide you a standard method of developing and creating your marketing programs. It will recap the thoughts, efforts, and actions that take place for a particular campaign, such as advertising or public relations or even a launch. An A3 can highlight the value that marketing supplies. You will learn how to format your A3 report in a way that most effectively communicates your story to your team and others.

The A3 tool provides a structure and a template for achieving this. A3 is a one- page document used to capture the dialogue in a problem solving process. Sending your marketing through such a process will enable you to create the clarity to areas such as CRM, Social Media, Joint Ventures, Client Retention, Client Acquisition, and more. It is a tool that can be used both strategically and tactically. It has developed in its own right to become a thinking process.

Stretch your thinking of using an A3. It stimulates thought creativity and when stretched allows many other interactions from others. Marketing with A3 is a new way of thinking; a whole new philosophy. To become truly proficient, you must go through a paradigm shift. You must build a Lean Problem Solving Culture into the way you create your marketing and think of your marketing. You have to move from solution centric to problem centric. You must develop strategies to focus on the right customer conversation – their problem?

P.S. The ebook, Marketing with A3 releases next week! If you purchase the Lean Marketing House eBook above, I will send you a copy of this book on the release date.

Couple of excellent Books on the subject of A3:
Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota’s PDCA Management System
Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process

The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota

admin — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 05:08:00 +0000

I have to preface this as saying that this is pure conjecture on how to sell to Toyota. I have no product or client at this time considering doing this. If you do have a product or service that would like to try this approach, please feel free to contact me. My door is open.

I would like to thank co-authors Jeffrey Liker and David Meir, co-authors of The Toyota Way Fieldbook where this material was derived from. The co-authors discussed the Supplier Partnering Hierarchy of Toyota that consisted of 7 steps:

One of the first steps in Lean Marketing is to understand the customers buying process. Mapping this out and detail and defining the resources, people, budget and marketing collateral to match each of these steps is imperative. This exercise can save you a tremendous amount of time and money in just determining if you are ready to attempt this undertaking. Selling to a company like Toyota could be a complete marketing channel in itself.

Toyota’s first step in the process is Mutual Understanding. They base this on the key elements of trust, mutual prosperity, respect for each other’s capability and Genchi gembutsu (actual part, actual place). Till we achieve this in our sales and marketing efforts there is little reason to proceed. We will stay in that first iterative PDCA loop till we achieve their respect and they invite us to the next step, interlocking structures.

Our sales and marketing efforts should go through the planning, do, check and act stages to achieve each of the key elements as defined. In the act stage we will arrive at a control to see if they are indications that Toyota is interested in initiating discussion about an alliance structure, interdependent processes and parallel sourcing. If there is no interest we must continue our efforts in another cycle of gaining mutual understanding. At some point and time, such as Seth Godin discussed in The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) , you must decide to quit or continue on.

I hate to make it sound this simple. Of course understanding what Toyota means by trust may not be. But I think you would be surprised that it really is not that difficult as long as you do not get the cart ahead of the horse. The authors go on to lay out this chart describing the key elements of each partnering characteristic. I believe your marketing should facilitate the decision making process of the customer. As you create your material, presentations, etc. each one should fulfill the need of that step in process and nothing more. Using the thought process of MVP, minimum viable product will allow you to respond quicker and more accurately to their needs. More than this will complicate your message and may reduce the likelihood of gaining acceptance. More interactions, increase face time with a customer is a winning proposition.

Mimicking the customer buying process is at the heart of Lean Marketing and more specifically the Value Stream Marketing concepts. This marketing channel or Value Stream would equate to one of the pillars in the Lean Marketing House. The pillars are built with the iterative PDCA loops as depicted in the drawing above. As you build the relationship with the customer the cycles typically get smaller and faster. In Toyota’s and many others companies when you reach the top of the pyramid, you start sharing PDCA cycles.

Your Marketing Vision should define your Customer’s Core Problem

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:25:00 +0000

Today’s products and services reflect greater marketing segmentation.

As you segment, each segment will include fewer customers. However, it should enable you to identify the individual stages more effectively or determine your material and information flow needed in each step. It will also allow you to define waste and create better value for your customer. In fact, this is basically the definition of Value Stream Mapping.

As a result of this exercise, you will change the shape of your Pillar. You should be able to shorten your cycle in some and as a result decrease your expenditure in the marketing process. Others, on the other hand, may be lengthened and a total different approach may have to be utilized. A good example of this may be in the pursuit of a governmental contract. The point to be taken is that there is nothing wrong with either situation, what is wrong is treating each segment the same.

The key ingredient to get started is developing the NEED statement for each marketing segment or Pillar. The statement should clearly define your CUSTOMER’S CORE PROBLEM and your ability to solve that problem. Defining this alone will provide clarity throughout the various stages in your marketing process. The NEED statement is a living document that will evolve as your product/service and the customer’s use of it changes. Further development of this statement should include limits on cost and time to keep your Pillar within boundaries that you are able to manage.

The point of defining the Need Statement is to succeed at developing a manageable process. We want the resulting marketing phases to meet our customer’s needs, at the right time and at the right cost. It must do this in a way that maximizes our investment in the process. Marketing can be a complex and often risky process and in today’s world it mandates speedy development. The Lean Marketing process is geared to provide a framework and specific tools for efficiently and predictably reaching goals.

Following the Customer’s Need in your Value Stream Map

The Pillars of the Lean Marketing House

Value Stream Mapping for Marketing

Get Rid of Your Marketing Vision Statement and Address the NEED!

Why do The Pillars of the Lean Marketing House™ crumble?

Technorati : Lean Marketing, Lean Marketing House, Pillar