I was saddened by recent bankruptcy filing. Its convenient stores and helpful staff are easy to find in any city I鈥檓 visiting. There is even a store in the tiny community where I live.

Radio Shack鈥檚 60-year rise and fall is a case study in what happens when a company鈥檚 vision isn鈥檛 balanced by insight into its customer’s expectations.

When Charles Tandy bought a small-time chain of nine stores in 1963, advances in technology and automation pointed to a future where we would all enjoy lives of leisure, freed of the need to spend eight hours a day at the office. Radio Shack would become a place for tinkerers and hobbyists with lots of free time and a desire to explore the brave new world of technology.

Radio Shack employees were drawn from the same pool of hobbyists, so they were ideally suited to engage shoppers with enthusiasm and knowledge. By the mid-1970s, the citizens band radio craze had made the company incredibly profitable. At it’s peak, the company had 7,000 stores.

But as we all know, technology didn鈥檛 give us more free time. In fact, in 1979 the average American worker was on the job for 1687 hours a year. By 2007, that number had ballooned to 1868 hours 鈥� adding more than a month of extra work hours every year.

We can only speculate about what might have happened had Radio Shack focused on its origins when it jumped into the personal computer market in 1977 with the TRS-80. This was a time when computers were often assembled from kits, but Tandy chose to sell his pre-assembled in one box. Radio Shack had found success marketing to 鈥渄o-it-yourselfers,鈥� so why would they not continue to do so with their computers? It鈥檚 hard to say, but the TRS-80 is now barely a footnote in computing history, and marked the beginning of the decline for the corporation.

Over the next few decades, the company flailed about, expanding their product selections to focus more on consumer electronics and launching a mail-order catalog business. Their ability to solve a unique problem for their buyers continued to deteriorate, as there were plenty of other players in the consumer electronics space, and the Internet quickly made mail-order catalogs obsolete. Attempts to launch a 鈥渂ig box鈥� electronics chain failed, and the company sold off the electronics manufacturers that made their house brands to focus on third-party products, with disastrous results.

By 2011, stock prices had fallen from $24.33 to $2.53 a share, and in January the company announced they were filing for bankruptcy.

Radio Shack is only one of many market leaders who lost their way as their vision came face-to-face with customer expectations. Similar failures to understand their target buyer and deliver on their specific needs have defeated behemoth companies like Unisys, Digital Equipment Corporation and countless others.

The changes that cause large, successful companies to fail are rarely sudden, which is why they are so easy to dismiss and also why they are so disturbing. Like Radio Shack, most companies have many opportunities to adjust their strategies to align with their buyers鈥� needs. Radio Shack might well have survived had they maintained their focus on their audience of electronics hobbyists and adjusted their strategies accordingly. Instead, they pursued a 鈥渕e too鈥� strategy that stripped them of their purpose, steadily reducing their unique product offerings to sell mobile phones and consumer gear that could be purchased anywhere. The hobbyists went elsewhere, and in the end, Radio Shack couldn鈥檛 serve any buyer better than some other store could.

It鈥檚 too late for Radio Shack, but it doesn鈥檛 have to be too late for your company. If you鈥檙e developing strategies without understanding your customer鈥檚 expectations, consider the possibility that you might be missing facts that will be retold in a story like this.

And beware of the online tools that help you build buyer personas without interviewing real buyers. As the people at Radio Shack can attest, it is incredibly dangerous to recycle your internal mis-perceptions into a new template and rely on your own hopes and vision.

P.S. My new book 鈥溕ㄌ胹: How to Gain Insights into your Customer鈥檚 Expectations, Align your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business鈥� (Wiley) is now shipping.

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This post is contributed by Gordana Stok, a Certified Practitioner of the 色花堂 Institute methodology.

Last year I decided to learn how to develop buyer personas so that I could become a better content marketer. Having practiced the craft of content marketing for over a decade, I was no stranger at producing content that helps buyers to make a more informed and educated purchasing decision. And, until a year ago, I honestly thought that I was communicating value from the buyer鈥檚 perspective.

But when the value proposition that I had helped to create for one of my B2B clients was canned by their new VP of Sales and Marketing, I started to question the very process marketers use and the people who get involved. It wasn鈥檛 until I came across an ebook from 色花堂 Institute that I truly understood the problem.

Like many marketing teams, we had reverse-engineered the product鈥檚 value based on its top features and unique selling points 鈥� not necessarily on what鈥檚 most important to buyers.聽 So when the new VP challenged our value proposition, we couldn鈥檛 back up any of our claims with hard data. It became one person鈥檚 opinion versus another鈥檚. And guess whose opinion won?

With the term 鈥渞everse-engineering鈥� ringing loudly in my ears, I signed up for the 色花堂 Institute Masterclass and became a Certified Practitioner of the 5 Rings of Buying Insight methodology. Having now worked on buyer personas for several companies and interviewed dozens of decision-makers, here are the six most important and surprising things that I have learned so far.

1. You need to win both the hearts and minds of buyers 鈥� even in a complex B2B sale.

The first thing that surprised me is just how willing and eager buyers are to reveal details about their buying journey around a specific product 鈥� especially when there was a lot at stake for them and their organization. When asked the right questions, buyers will share both the cold hard facts and requirements that shaped their purchasing decision, as well as the doubts, fears, relief, confidence and joy they experienced as they went from status quo to successful implementation. When you hear senior business executives at multi-billion dollar organizations express such strong emotion, you realize you need to do more than just appeal to their intellect. You need to win both their hearts and minds.

2. You can capture a wealth of actionable insights conducting 30-minutes interviews with just 10 buyers.

I鈥檓 always amazed when I review the transcripts from the recorded interviews with buyers and I first bring all the quotes into Excel to analyze the data. Conducting 30-minute interviews with just 10 buyers can easily generate over 350 revealing quotes! The key, of course, is to carefully interpret each one, identify the most significant trends and select the strongest quotes to include in the final buyer persona. An art unto itself!聽 The quotes that make the cut are those that provide new or thought provoking insights as well as enough details so that a clear plan of action can be taken. So unlike the 鈥渂uyer personas鈥� that are created based on generic, demographic data, the insights from interview-based personas provide a real competitive advantage.

3. Only a fraction of what鈥檚 important to buyers is typically addressed on a company鈥檚 website.
It goes without saying that when you hear buyers express their pain points and needs in their own words, along with the criteria they use to evaluate solution options and make their final purchasing decision, it becomes crystal clear what information they need and how to message them. What I鈥檓 repeatedly surprised by, however, is just how far off-course a company鈥檚 content can be without these insights. In my experience, only 20% to 40% of what buyers consider to be important is actually addressed on a company鈥檚 website. The good news for marketers is that buyer quotes can easily be turned into benefit statements and inspire topics for numerous content marketing pieces. As the President of 色花堂 Institute, Adele Revella, likes to say, 鈥淭he content practically writes itself鈥�.

4. Buyers want more in-depth product information so the length of content isn鈥檛 as important as relevance and clarity.

Being a content marketer at heart who loves to build understanding and influence people鈥檚 views, this is one of my favorite findings from interviewing buyers. When researching solution options, buyers quickly scan a company鈥檚 website to determine whether it has a solution worth investigating, so content needs to be brief. But when buyers are seriously considering a solution, they want in-depth case studies, white papers and technical briefs that enable them to assess whether the solution will work in their environment and generate the expected results. Length of content during this phase in the buying journey is not as important as relevance and clarity. What鈥檚 more, you can鈥檛 possibly create a persuasive argument for purchasing your solution if your argument has holes or isn鈥檛 backed by credible data. So go ahead and increase the word count to make sure you鈥檙e not disqualified due to insufficient information or a weak argument.

5. Buyers want companies to make it easier for them to evaluate and compare competitive solution options and demonstrate ROI.

One of the questions that I love to ask buyers during interviews is 鈥淗ow could the companies that you considered have made the buying experience easier for you?鈥� The top two responses from buyers, regardless of the product category, industry, size of the buyer鈥檚 organization or the buyer鈥檚 title, are 鈥淢ake it easier for me to evaluate and compare competitive solution options鈥� and 鈥淗elp me to demonstrate the ROI to my executive team鈥�.

The most common complaint buyers have is that it鈥檚 difficult to compare solution options because every company uses a different marketing term to mean the same thing. It鈥檚 like comparing apples to oranges. Buyers want a company鈥檚 website to include a chart that compares their solution鈥檚 features with the competition鈥檚 using more neutral terms. Buyers realize that the chart will be skewed in favor of the company鈥檚 solution, but they still feel it鈥檚 a good starting point for evaluating solutions.

Furthermore, buyers need to demonstrate return on investment to their executive team in order to get final sign-off, so any information or tools that a company can provide is extremely helpful. This includes industry research reports that demonstrate the impact the solution category has on an organization鈥檚 business and ROI figures tailored specifically for their organization.

6. After experiencing the power of interview-based, buyer personas first-hand, I can鈥檛 imagine doing content marketing without it.

This may sound like an exaggeration, but I honestly don鈥檛 know how I managed to do content marketing effectively without buyer personas. My perspective has completely changed and I hope to never have to go back to guessing what messages will resonate with buyers or relying solely on the opinions of internal stakeholders. 聽I realize that not all companies may be ready or willing to embark on a buyer persona project for a variety of reasons. But when I work with clients nowadays, my advice to them is this:聽 You can鈥檛 know with absolute certainty what鈥檚 important to buyers and what information you need to persuade them to purchase your solution until you ask them.

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One of the life experiences I credit most for teaching me about marketing was the five years I spent in sales. I came to that job in a roundabout way 鈥� a division of Wells Fargo Bank wanted a paperless office and asked me to make that happen. I knew nothing about technology (and ultimately failed to create paperless-ness) but I quickly fell in love with computers.

My boss at that company helped too, giving me some of the best career advice I鈥檝e ever received. He told me 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to love the core business you鈥檙e in or you鈥檒l never get ahead.鈥� I hated the core business I was in (banking), so I cut bait and started trying to find a job as a salesperson in a technology company.

My first assignment was a sales 鈥渙verlay鈥� position that focused on winning more business from the current customer base. I loved it and grew revenue by 300%, but the reps weren鈥檛 happy that someone else was making money from their customers. Management didn鈥檛 want to irritate the reps, so they eliminated my position and offered me a job in marketing.

Fast forward ten years, and in another company I spent four years in charge of both sales and marketing teams.

So while I consider myself a marketer, those five years in sales helped me see that several aspects of the way we differentiate the two roles is illogical and costly.

Consider this:

1. Sales and marketing are both about persuasion. The sales person鈥檚 job is to persuade one buyer at a time, while the marketer鈥檚 job is to persuade markets full of buyers.

When I was in sales, it was marketing鈥檚 job to get a buyer to notice us, and then it was my job to persuade that buyer to choose us. This was a great division of labor, because it鈥檚 way more difficult to persuade a market full of buyers than one at a time. But today鈥檚 buyers have changed the rules, navigating 60% to 80% of their decision before they talk to a salesperson. Companies that haven鈥檛 made the shift to persuasive marketing risk elimination before the salespeople have a chance to do their job.

2. Salespeople have the opportunity, permission and training to listen to buyers before they build a strategy to persuade them. Marketers have none of these things.

As a sales rep, I learned to dedicate the first part of every sales call to listening to my buyer, gaining real insight into that account鈥檚 needs and expectations. Then it was my job to describe our solution in a way that established a perfect fit between that buyer鈥檚 needs and our product. Go tell sales management that you want their reps to stop listening to buyers before they sell to them, and they鈥檒l look at you like you鈥檙e crazy. But everyone expects marketers to do just that.

3. Sales people have to optimize their time to persuade buyers to buy now, but marketers have to optimize their investments to build pipeline for the future.

By the time I started running sales, I completely understood the importance of marketing. 聽However, it wasn鈥檛 long before all of my time and attention shifted to the salespeople. Faced with the urgency of meeting this month鈥檚 numbers, our longer-term investments suffered. I learned that it鈥檚 really difficult to balance short and long term priorities, and that marketing metrics need to focus on results that impact the next quarter or next year, even if this seems less tangible.

4.听 While there are dozens of things that every good sales person learns about each buyer, the ability to be persuasive hinges on just 5 key insights.

When I decided to help marketers understand their buyer personas, I knew that many of the things I learned about buyers in sales only worked when I had the opportunity to build a strategy to persuade one buyer at a time. It was easy to see that tracking all of these distinctions about buyers would cause a lot of confusion and far too many different strategies. So I started thinking about what really helped me to be a persuasive sales rep, and that鈥檚 how the 5 Rings of Buying Insight became the foundation of buyer personas.

5.听 Despite everything you鈥檝e heard about price, the company that wins the buyer’s trust wins their business.

The solutions I had to sell were invariably more expensive than our competition. So we didn’t win on price. We competed for the buyer鈥檚 business by being the best listeners and using our insights to persuade buyers that we were best qualified to meet their expectations. Now that buyers can avoid sales contact for so long, a lot of that responsibility belongs to the marketing team.

I think it鈥檚 fair to say that when I was in sales, we had a lot more impact on the outcome of a deal than the reps I know today. And because this change is driven by buyers who have ready access to the information they think they need, this trend is unlikely to reverse itself. It’s time for marketers to gain the deep buyer insights that have always been the foundation of successful sales.

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One of the hardest parts of bringing our 色花堂 model into practice actually comes after the project is completed.

We鈥檝e accomplished so much with the client, working with them to build clear, actionable buyer personas, and the results are spectacular. We just can鈥檛 share them with anybody.

Needless to say, marketing departments like to keep their successes close to the vest to make sure that their competitors don鈥檛 hop on board. There鈥檚 nothing I鈥檇 like more than to trumpet from the rooftops how Client X or Client Y improved their marketing content or sales results using the 5 Rings of Buying Insight, but iron-clad NDAs keep my mouth shut tight.

However, sometimes clients are so excited that they just can鈥檛 help talking.

色花堂 Masterclass alumni Samuel Williams, with his firm , was contracted by Deloitte Private, the division of Deloitte Consulting that specializes in families and small businesses, to develop a marketing plan.

The firm started by interviewing people who had recently evaluated solutions like theirs, modeling the buyers鈥� decision to uncover clear, factual insights about how they compared Deloitte to its competitors.

When Deloitte saw the details that these personas revealed, it was easy to identify the targeted messaging and marketing content that would persuade their buyers to choose them. And it was simple to help the sales teams see how to tell those same powerful stories to their customers.

Don鈥檛 take my word for it 鈥� watch this video from Deloitte head of marketing and communications Cassandra Worrall about the whole process.

Strong stuff, right? Here鈥檚 a more from Aamplify with even more data.

One of the key takeaways from their buyer persona research was that buyers had three key motivations for coming to Deloitte:

1. Help leveraging global business development opportunities

2. Heavy lifting to help solve specific challenges

3. Technology solutions to improve business processes

Armed with these insights, Deloitte Private pushed that messaging front and center to their home page, giving their digital strategy a powerful, clear call to action.

The best way to judge the power of a marketing campaign is by real-world results, and Deloitte got them. Using the tools and interviewing skills they acquired by attending the 色花堂 Masterclass, Aamplify gave their client exactly what they needed to connect with buyers without the guesswork.

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#10.聽 I鈥檓 under a lot of pressure to address high-priority initiatives and don鈥檛 want to hear about other problems that you think I should take on. I just don’t have the bandwidth.

#9. 聽 Your website has all the same useless information as your competitor’s does. So no, I didn鈥檛 spend much time there.

#8.聽聽 I鈥檝e done my research and know about many of the things that I must have to succeed. I want to know whether you can deliver on those before I go any further.

#7.聽聽 Yes, I have a budget and the authority to buy, but I鈥檓 not going to tell you that. I鈥檒l decide when I鈥檓 ready to talk to a sales person.

#6.聽聽 I鈥檓 seeing a lot of obvious stuff about value, but nothing that speaks to the way we plan to measure the success of this initiative.

#5.听聽 I can鈥檛 make this decision without persuading other stakeholders. I need to see something that helps me handle their concerns and priorities too.

#4.听聽 I will lose my job if I choose the wrong solution. I need to be convinced that you can address my specific concerns about this decision.

#3.聽聽 I鈥檓 testing your company to see if you fully understand my needs in this area and will be responsive if I do buy from you.

#2.聽聽 We won鈥檛 choose the least expensive solution; we鈥檒l select the one that is the best match for our needs.

And the #1 thing I want you to know: 聽 This decision is actually not about price or features. We鈥檒l go with the company that we believe we can trust.

Have you heard these before? It’s easy to see why companies that best address these buyer concerns have a major competitive advantage in this buyer-driven market.

Marketers are learning that they can listen to their buyers, and we mean REALLY listen, to gain the insights that drive the content those buyers want and need. They’re discovering that this level of listening can’t be done through a survey or social media, that marketers need to have a unique kind of conversation with recent buyers, probing beyond the obvious answers until they know precisely how, when and why buyers choose the solutions they market.

These marketers are building buyer personas that focus on the Five Rings of Insight about the buying decision, avoiding the simple demographic profiles that can result in too many personas or not enough useful information about them.

Do your buyer personas reveal the insights you need to address these top 10 concerns? I love to hear from marketers who have truly insightful buyer personas.

If your buyer personas are missing some of this critical information, take a minute to check out the 色花堂 Masterclass, the prerecorded training that shows you how you can become your company鈥檚 buyer expert. Or contact us to learn how you can schedule a private workshop for your team of four or more marketers.

The post Top 10 Things the B2B 色花堂 is Saying About Your (Content) Marketing appeared first on 色花堂 Institute.

These aren’t the real issues for Sam, I said. He鈥檚 been living with these problems for years 鈥� why would he be motivated to talk to you now? We explored the more personal side of this issue for Sam 鈥� could his job or career be compromised by sticking with the status quo? Which aspects of this decision look riskiest to Sam? What, exactly, is at stake if he makes a decision to go with your solution and it doesn鈥檛 work out?

I kept asking for deeper insight into Sam鈥檚 resistance to their solution. Sam knows about products such as yours, I said, so this isn鈥檛 about the obvious problems. Let鈥檚 talk about his attitudes and what it would it take to change those perceptions.

After a bit of discussion, my client said, 鈥淚 get it! Buyer personas are about 鈥榮take-in-the-heart鈥� marketing.鈥� A bit violent, I thought, but the people in the room suddenly understood that capturing the same old 鈥減ain-points鈥� in their buyer persona renders it meaningless.

I鈥檝e never seen a more interesting example of stake-in-the-heart marketing than this year鈥檚 U.S. presidential campaign. I confess that as a marketer I am predisposed to see the election through the lens of effective campaign strategy, but think about it. Can you see that the proposed answers to the country鈥檚 problems (health care, the economy, terrorism) are the candidate鈥檚 鈥渇eature-benefits,鈥� crafted into messages that target different persona pain points? Do the differences in their plans fully account for your decision? Are their solutions new enough to explain the record numbers of people voting in the primaries? Or could it be that these candidates have managed to communicate on an entirely different level, and to audiences who are seeking something more?

With rare exceptions, the technology solutions I hear about each week are a lot like politicians 鈥� the differences between competing features and benefits aren鈥檛 enough to drive most people to take action. Plus buyers know that technology (and political) solutions are more difficult to implement than anyone wants to admit. Marketing needs to get personal if we want to convince buyers that our solutions can be trusted get the job done, come what may.

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These thoughts were triggered when one of my readers forwarded a paper published by Laura Ramos, Forrester Research鈥檚 analyst for B2B Marketing. The paper, entitled 鈥淪egmentation vs 色花堂s, Where Should B2B Marketers Start?鈥� reports that B2B marketers are way behind their B2C peers in developing effective messaging and marketing strategies, and that the source of our problem is that we don鈥檛 useboth sides of our brain. I鈥檓 sure that Jonathan Asbell sent me the paper because Laura points to segmentation and personas as the answer. Thanks, Jonathan.

The Forrester report describes the typical B2B approach to segmentation, with marketers following the sales people’s lead and utilizing industry, geography, or company size to identify target markets. B2C marketers start with this thinking but delve much deeper, seeking to understand and segment markets based on subjective differences in how customers approach decision making. In Laura鈥檚 report, she recommends personas as a way to capture and communicate these deeper insights.

Laura published her report in June 2006, but I haven鈥檛 seen much change. We鈥檙e still using the same left-brained thinking to develop marketing strategies, despite the fact that our markets are maturing. We鈥檙e not at B2C commodity stage yet, but we鈥檙e well beyond the time when we could successfully market and differentiate products based on the just-released features.

Since you鈥檙e reading my blog you may already agree with me, and are wondering what you can do to get your management to listen. I鈥檓 happy to recommend Laura鈥檚 report for those in your company who might be influenced by a Forrester analyst. Here鈥檚 one of my favorite parts of her report:

鈥淏ecause segmentation defines who to target and personas describe what to say to them, B2B marketers should use both hard numbers and soft emotions to expand their customer understanding. They should delve deeper into prospect requirements and needs in exchange for handing out information like white papers or detailed product specs.鈥�

Well said, Laura. We need to resist thinking like our left-brained companies. We need to abandon our personal preferences for right-brained, creative activities. It鈥檚 time for technology marketers to engage in some balanced brain utilization.

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