$Account.OrganizationName
The Knowledgentsia™ Ideas for the customer-focused business
March 2007

Greetings!

Welcome to the March edition of The Knowledgentsia, the newsletter for the customer-obsessed.

In This Issue...
  • KNOWLEDGENCE ON THE WEB
  • Top 5 Tips for Extending the Sales Kickoff "High"
  • The Name Game
  • The Colonel and the Pope
  • VOICES OF THE KNOWLEDGENTSIA

  • Top 5 Tips for Extending the Sales Kickoff "High"


    By now you’re 30+ days past your Annual Sales Kick- off meeting. The sessions went off without a hitch and the travel reports have been filed – does that mean the "high" is over? Not if you want to leverage the time and investment you made to set the direction and tone of the 2007 sales year. After participating in several corporate sales kick-offs this past January, here are a few tips to extend the impact of your sales meeting throughout the year.

    Tip 1 – Amplify the Theme

    Take the theme you used for this year’s kick-off and reuse it in every “All Sales” communication that goes out to your team. Think about how the theme relates to the content of what you are sending to the reps – and tie it in at every opportunity. What actions, activities or occurrences are contributing to achieving the goal of the theme? For example, if the theme is “Leading Customer Success,” then every time a customer has become successful using your product or service, share it with your organization. Note – I’m suggesting sharing the customer’s success which means waiting until the product is installed, used and shown to be successful. This is about embodying the theme, not just celebrating the sale.


    The Name Game


    Selecting a good name is one of those things that many people think is an easy thing. Whether the name is for a product, or a company, or a service or a building, there's more to the process than meets the eye. The problem is that too often naming exercises are done without consideration for the world that surrounds the name. Is it being used anywhere else? Are there permutations of the name that could be confusingly similar? And what about ownership? Aside from registered trademark rights - who else might "own" the name?

    Let's take a trip down Route 9 in Natick, Massachsetts. There is a shopping mall that has been there for 40 years, engagingly named "The Natick Mall." My first after-school job was in a restaurant there, back in the dark ages. The mall has recently undergone a major expansion: 500,000 square feet of new stores, restaurants. With a new and improved mall, it makes sense to embark on some new marketing and positioning. All of that begs for a new name. Something that denotes the new status of the mall, creates some new buzz, describes what the mall is today. Right?

    The marketers of the mall labored over a new potential name. End result: the owners of the mall, General Growth Properties, selected "Natick" for the new name. Of all the potential names that were generated, they decided to appropriate the town of Natick's name.


    The Colonel and the Pope

    Recently, global fast-food chain KFC decided to offer a fish sandwich during the period of Lent (the forty day period of Christian fasting that precedes Easter). Not satisfied by merely cashing in on a religious holy period, KFC has requested a blessing of their fish sandwich from the Pope! Holy Endorsements!

    Now, certainly, I can see the marketing appeal for hard-core Catholics, but could this have a reverse effect on Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Devil- worshipers, Atheists, Agnostics, and members of the Saint John Coltrane Church? And anyone else who does not see the Pope as an infallible entity? I mean, how much sense does it make for a fast food chain, or any secular business, really, to draw a line in the sand and ask for a Papal endorsement? You run the risk of alienating as many, if not more, people than you attract.


    VOICES OF THE KNOWLEDGENTSIA


    "Re-examine all you have been told . . . Dismiss what insults your Soul."

    - - Walt Whitman, poet 1819 - 1892


    KNOWLEDGENCE ON THE WEB

    Chuck Dennis recently had an article on the various aspects of assessing your business' customer service published on EzineArticles.com. You can read this article here.

    Other published articles by Knowledgence Associates....
    Quick Links...

    "Customer View" Blog

    Need a Speaker?

    Services

    Article Archive

    More About Us



    Join our mailing list!
    phone: 617.661.8250