Explosive Marketing

As part of the Take Back Your Power series, I bring you some tips for getting your team re-focused on your core offerings. Expect a significant release of energy as an outcome from this activity, especially when that energy is directed to enable your Business Development Systems. Think about the good that will come from a burst of energy pointed at lead generation, sales conversions, and more thoroughly serving existing clients.

Core is defined (simply) as the central or most important part of something. Appreciate the visual image of drilling into hard materials, where the act of drilling produces a core sample that tells a very vivid and useful story. In nuclear physics, the core represents the place for the splitting of an atom, which is usually accompanied by a significant release of energy.

Are you ready to drill into your business and see what you have at the core that makes your enterprise so valuable to your clients and so interesting to your peers, collaborators, and potential influencers? 

Getting a True Core Sample
For best results, I recommend that you take two unique sets of samples. Sample one, which I believe represents the most “true” sample, comes by drilling down through your client list and sample two which comes by reviewing your published marketing materials. I always recommend starting with the view from client list because this is where the good stuff is. The characters themselves and nature of the relationships help display the true color of the core sample. The view through the client list also offers a more practical connection to the impact that your core offerings have on the client’s situation.

Step One: Go through your client list in whatever means possible for you to get the most complete and colorful view. Depending on how many clients you serve/sell each year and the nature of the transactions, you may need to make several passes. If you are a retailer and have limited intel on specific consumers, I recommend you take a closer look at transaction histories.

Here are some of the views you may wish to study and aggregate for best results:
•    Client lists provide big picture view on headcounts and product/service adoption. Dig into historical lists if you desire to revive some previously enjoyed set of clients and/or mix of business.
•    Accounting records show how often a client spends money with you as well as the long-term value of the client—which ultimately impacts the net value of “the offering “
•    Proposals provide a great view of what has truly been offered.
•    Contracts lend a reality check to what was accepted by the client.

Step Two: Capture the key attributes in a way that makes sense in your business in some form of aggregated document. When I perform these discovery and analysis tasks in my client projects, I typically build a matrix of the most relevant elements for their situation. It’s not important to document everything you observe while researching the core, but don’t forget to highlight one of the most important attributes of all…How much you enjoy providing this particular offering and/or serving this particular client.

Visit the Resource Page of my website if you’d like to view a sample of this type of matrix. Worksheet: Core Offering-Client Review

Step Three: Think about what you’ve learned about your core offerings and the good that they do for your ideal clients. Consider the benefits to your enterprise of getting re-focused around these core offerings.  Now use this knowledge to take back your power! 

Huge Bonus! If you’re looking for interesting topics to share in your social media campaigns you will surface a lot of great conversation threads performing this type of discovery.

Would love to hear what you useful discoveries you make concerning your “true” core offerings.

And of course, any stories of creating fission by getting to the core and splitting some of your very own atoms

P.S. You may have noticed that none of the steps offered involve a review of your published marketing materials? We’ll tackle that some other time, after you complete your directed discovery process.