The Limitation Breaking Offer
We all know the story of the two shoe salesmen. Told in many variants, two shoe salesmen were sent to a foreign country to assess the market. Their respective responses,:
- “It’s a disaster! Nobody here wears shoes.”
- “Nobody here wear shoes, glorious opportunity!”
are traditionally used to comment on ATTITUDE – how we see the world. However, a recent post tells the story with an interesting twist:
Salesman 1, who reported: “It’s a disaster! Nobody here wears shoes”, returned home to oversee a newly formed business territory and became a very successful, wealthy and influential businessman.
Salesman 2, who reported: “Nobody here wears shoes, glorious opportunity!”, built a warehouse and ordered 2 000 pairs of shoes. After a year, he only sold 100 pairs. He concluded that he had made a huge mistake, BUT he now knew the market. The inhabitants didn’t like to wear shoes because of the heat, but they still walked a lot. The Salesman imported sandals, lotion to toughen up the soles, straw hats and walking sticks. After a few years, he bought the business from his company and made a comfortable living.
The writer of the post used the story in an intra-/entrepreneurial context, instead of using the story to punt attitude. However, if we look at the story from a Marketing and Sales perspective, the story highlights an important aspect:
The market always wins – Salesman 1 chose a much more lucrative market than Salesman 2.
“When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins.
When a lousy team meets a great market, market wins.
When a great team meets a great market, something special happens.
You can obviously screw up a great market — and that has been done, and not infrequently — but assuming the team is baseline competent and the product is fundamentally acceptable, a great market will tend to equal success and a poor market will tend to equal failure. Market matters most.”
– Andy Rachleff:
We have reached a stage where all customer behaviour is determined by suppliers and/or supply side actions. Business “improvements” often reveal new limitations that can be solved for customers or consumers. These are referred to as problems or pain points in sales. Customers need to find ways to cope with their problems or pain points. It is possible to identify the major limitation that the customers face, through the process of observing how they cope.
An example of this is the technological advances that made UBER possible, which in turn solved a ride availability limitation and created a new market category.
As the supply side creates the problems and has the ability to identify the coping way of their customers, it has the opportunity to develop an offer to overcome the limitation. It is important to note, through their coping behaviour, customers are already paying for the lack of a solution. This is the key to the pricing model.
Coping ways become ingrained. People often believe that limitations are the only reality. Using customers’ coping ways as symptoms, a thorough cause and effect analysis can lead to the discovery of the major limitation. When a limitation is effectively addressed, a solution can be created, solving the market’s problem in a way that nothing else will. From this point onward, customers’ adoption of the new way is the only competition, and not your competitors.
Once the Limitation Breaking Offer has been defined, a guarantee mechanism to drive adoption must be deployed.
Having a Limitation Breaking Offer is only the beginning – now the value customers experience will be shared through social media messaging. Using targeted advertising, the word of mouth process can be advanced, and a lead funnel machine can be created.
As customers adopt the Limitation Breaking Offer, and the delivery of the product or service gives them an experience that feels like “water running downhill”, the customer base will grow and grow. The built-in guarantee mechanism blocks competitors from following, as much as giving customers a unique experience.
Within a few months a Product Market Fit test, the Sean Ellis test, can be conducted by asking the market how they would feel if the service or product was not available anymore. The test asks customers to choose between 3 options:
- Very disappointed
- Somewhat disappointed
- Not disappointed
A result where more than 40% of the respondents choose “Very Disappointed” is a good indicator of Product Market Fit.
By now the “Category King” status is in the air.
The Flocution Marketing and Sales Solution is a carefully choreographed program which teaches marketing and sales teams to become champion performers. Five Critical Success Factors are covered in the program.
The Flocution Sales Solution was developed based on the application of flow based management concepts. It is supported by well documented knowledge, collected over the past 15 years and has been successfully implemented by ±25 businesses, giving each business a competitive edge in their market.
Implement the Flocution Marketing and Sales Solution and you will:
Reduce risk
The risk of spending time and money without getting the desired results, is minimised. The use of a flow focused system results in fast feedback loops to make informed decisions and take corrective actions.
Stabilize the flow rate of sales
Gone are the days of erratic sales. The sales rate is aligned with the business’s capacity and growth goals
Exploit the business revenue to the maximum degree
The greatest value in market opportunities are extracted through:
- The understanding of Customer Perception of Value
- The implementation of market segmentation and designing sales offers that meet the needs of the different segments.
Ensure scalability
The focus on promotional activity and deal flow throughout the sales organisation quickly identifies where and when capacity is required to grow sales.
Support alignment with other business functions
Transparency of the sales process and constant deal flow improve interaction with other business functions.
Any business that understands the limitation their customers face in relation to their service or product, can become a Category King. It is simply a process of observing coping ways, identifying a big enough limitation, and developing an offer that will overcome the limitation combined with the tenacity to roll out and improve continually. Follow this process and Category King status is guaranteed.
Click here to learn more about Category Kings. Click here to learn more about the Flocution Sales Solution or contact rene.coetzee@opslogik.com to start developing your Limitation Breaking Offer.