Marketing and Generosity: Sales and Solutions for Human Flourishing

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by Bernie Anderson

My name is Bernie Anderson and I have the honor of taking over the BAM blog for the next several weeks. I am a certified business and nonprofit consultant with Growability® – read more in my bio below. 

This is Part 3 of a series. Read Part 1 and Part 2 here.

 

The day I landed my first “grown-up job” I was pretty excited. It was Summer of 1985 and I had graduated high school. I was not entirely sure what was next in my life, so I took a gap year before figuring out college, university, trade school, or something else. I landed a job in a local shop that sold books and music, two of my favorite things in this world, to this day. For a year, I thrived as a salesclerk. People would come into the store wanting a new series to read or a new album to listen to — and I could authentically help them with that problem. Sales was a satisfying job because I was serving people by being generous with my knowledge of books and music.

We sometimes get jaded with age.

Over the years that love for sales waned, mostly because I hated being “sold to” (and there are a lot hucksters in this world who do just that!) The slick used-car or door-to-door salesperson, trained to be psychologically manipulative, conning you into spending money on things you don’t need.

Later, we were just-married, and I was seeking work to pay bills, I interviewed for a sales job at a mattress store. The first question the manager asked was, “Are you willing to do what it takes to make a sale? Would you lie to a customer, telling them there’s only one mattress left and you will lose it unless you buy now?”

I said “no” and walked away.

In my mind, marketing and sales was a “necessary evil” for running a business.

Yet, marketing is the second simple ingredient in your BAM project and it’s non-negotiable. It’s at the heart of all business. You must take your valuable product to the market. This is unavoidable.

 

Sales is about prioritizing your customer and solving their problem

 

In the Growability® Business Operating System, there are two critical aspects of marketing:

1. Prioritize Your Customers
2. Automate Your Sales

 

Here’s where many of us need a mindset change. Read more

Starting Lean: Soft Launches Help Avoid Hard Landings

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by Mike Baer

Adapted from material developed for a Third Path Initiative training module.

A very common story among highly excited entrepreneurs goes something like this: get a great idea, build the product, go whole hog to market, wait and lose a lot of money. It’s equivalent to the leadership anti-mantra “ready, fire, aim.” I call this the “emotional/entrepreneur syndrome” where any action is preferred to analysis and patience.

Contrast that with a less common but much wiser approach. Get an idea, test the idea, check out the landscape, build a sufficient product to try out, go lightly to market, listen, and adjust. Boring? Not at all…unless you just get off on failure.

This approach has been called many things over the years. It’s not new. Soft opening. Soft launch. Lean startup. Trial and error. Jesus put it this way:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him… – Luke 14:28-29, ESV

Out of context, I admit but true nonetheless. Take your time and do it right.

Here are the steps I’d use if I was doing another startup. After my initial ideation, testing the market, and market research, I’d:

Develop a Minimal Viable Product

This is a concept not created but made popular by Eric Ries in The Lean Startup. A “minimal viable product” or MVP is defined as:

…that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.” – Wikipedia

… a development technique in which a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final, complete set of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product’s initial users. – Techopedia

In other words, don’t try to create the perfect website, application, food, widget. Instead, build just enough, barely enough, the minimum to actually go to market. You will improve and update and complete your product later but for now I just want my car on the track.  Read more

How Does Spiritual Impact Intersect with Your Product or Service?

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It goes without saying that the product or service you develop will be tightly interwoven with your missional goals: social, economic, environmental and spiritual. We can learn a lot from mainstream business about how to most effectively develop products and market share that will turn a profit and create economic impact. We can also learn much from the social enterprise movement and other socially responsibility companies about how products and services integrate with both social and environmental impact. But business as mission integrates a fourth bottom line, that of spiritual impact. In what ways does the product you develop or the service you offer intersect with the spiritual impact of a BAM company?

We asked four BAM practitioners in very different sectors in different parts of Asia to share why they chose their business and how it connects with the spiritual goals for their business:

Extreme Sports Equipment – Wholesale and Distribution

For us it’s impossible to separate our products from the impact we want to have as a business. First of all we want to make sure that all our products have integrity. We use the finest quality materials to make our equipment. Factories here tend to use a lower grade of materials when mass producing this type of equipment. We asked our manufactures to use the highest grade of materials possible and have a good standard of quality control in place. We pay more, but we feel that supplying top-quality equipment is integral to our credibility and our message. We also include graphics and images on our equipment that have a gospel meaning behind them. Every graphic has a story and we include booklets with our products that explain what the images mean and essentially tell the gospel. We are actively engaged with the extreme sports community here, we sponsor competitors and hang out with the people who are into our sport. We’ve started a kind of church among this group, we go where they all gather together and we do a bible study there, we regularly meet with a core group of 20 to 30. We send representatives from our company out as they do product distribution to other cities and they are able to build relationships with community leaders and begin to disciple them. – Jon and Dave

Language Academy – Education

I have a passion for training and my wife loves to write curriculum, so taking over a Language Center was a natural fit for us. It was a struggling company at the time, but we could see how it had potential to make an impact in the Muslim nation we are in. People from all over the Middle East come here to learn English and other languages – we offer five languages all together. Some of our staff work exclusively within our Academy, others teach part-time and very intentionally engage in evangelism and church planting work, much of that out of the relationships they build through the center. Education and training work is a great environment in which to be a witness for Jesus and share biblical ideas since we get to spend intensive time with our students. We also have a children’s language program that mostly focuses on English teaching, since the demand for that is so high. We go into Arab Schools and teach children from 4 to 18 years, mainly immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, many coming from difficult situations. The English language represents hope for the future for them and we get to build really good relationships with whole families. We talk in our classes about religious beliefs, for instance at Christmas we were able to share all about who Christ is. We also get to go and drink coffee with the parents and make friends outside the classroom. – Steve  Read more

The Value You Offer: How to Create a Value Proposition

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by David Skews

 

The value proposition is a clear statement of what value you offer, to whom, and in what way. It is different from a mission statement because it focuses on differentiation, or the compelling reason why customers should choose you and not your competitor.

Over the next few years the forces of competition will intensify – even for BAM businesses. Although there is growing evidence that some businesses can offer a premium product or service and simultaneously reduce unit cost, this ‘increasing returns’ phenomenon is a mainly a characteristic of the knowledge economy (e.g. for an internet based service where the variable cost is very small). Usually a business has only two positioning choices: increase margin by lowering costs and charging what the market will bear, or increase margin by premium pricing based on a distinctive value proposition, consistently delivered, which gives customers a compelling reason to purchase.

A value proposition must be written in clear language using simple words, so that all your employees can work out the things they must do to deliver it consistently. A clear proposition will make resource allocation choices easier for you. When money is tight, you will want to spend on the things which maintain or extend your value proposition. The value proposition will also act as an attractor for new customers – it will define your position in the market and give you a reputation and therefore a brand. It will unify the actions of your board and employees and it will act as a deterrent to competition; the key to becoming a “price setter” in the market because you can then control your margin.

Your value proposition must answer these questions:

What are the specific products or services you are going to offer, including a clear statement as to what is special about your product/service?

What exact needs or wants does it satisfy for customers, considering very carefully things like how will they use it, what will they expect it to do for them, and what is it made up of?  Read more

Brand Strategy is for Everyone (Not just marketing!)

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by Bruce McKinnon

I started my business back in 2009 to solve a specific problem. Namely that companies found it hard to define the value of their brand and put that value into an order. When I asked them to tell me their most important message I would invariably be told it’s not possible because it depends on the audience, the current campaign, the territory, the product, etc. all of which have their place, but the brand has to be able to rise above that minutia and be able to be defined in a concise and cohesive way.

So I developed the Brand Arrow® as a framework to help companies make good choices because it’s their job to make those choices – not the agency they hire to build a website or the PR agency writing a press release. Why?

Because nobody knows the brand better than the company that owns it. And that’s the truth!

And whilst we’re at it here are 4 more truths about the value brand strategy can deliver:

1. Brand Strategy is for the whole company, not just marketing because its job is to represent the whole company

Whilst the marketing team may well be the first to use a brand strategy in developing its communications, it’s just as important for the HR team for example, to use the values of the brand in managing the culture of the organisation; the sales team to use the key messaging in developing relationships with prospects, finance to know why the budget is being focussed on particular areas and of course, the CEO to be able to communicate a clear vision for the company. Read more

6 Product and Market Bloopers: What to Do and Not to Do

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This December marks 8 years of regularly posting content on The BAM Review Blog. This month we are sharing some past posts on practical BAM topics that you might have missed.

Some things are learned the hard way. Mistakes are part of life. But we can also learn from others’ mistakes and hopefully avoid them. We asked BAM practitioners in very different sectors in different parts of Asia to share a lesson they had learned about developing their product or service. Here is their BAM blooper reel:

1. Don’t jump from your idea to… we’re going to do it!

Do your research. Don’t do, “I’m just believing God” and not do your homework. Take time to do some basic surveys and cost comparisons. We’ve always done market research and surveys, asking: is it out there, what’s the competition, how long have they been around, what they are charging? If there is nothing out there then look at a nearby country or look at a product that is close to the one you want to offer. We’ve seen businesses come in with a ‘good idea’ and just go ahead, with no research. One man I met came in with an idea for selling waffles, a business he’d done before. However, he was very badly advised by a local consultancy. He only had one product and here in this country if you don’t have at least 10 things on your menu no one will come in and buy. I walked into his shop and saw in five minutes that it wasn’t going to work as a business. He’d spent his retirement money and closed up after only 6 months. – Ron Read more

Making a Pivot

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by Michelle McDonald Pride

Before a strategic rebrand, our business was called Trading Hope. We were growing, but well aware of looming trends in the marketplace and patterns in our business that indicated a future decline in revenue. A mentor to me half joked and half warned that if we did not change something, we would soon be called Fading Hope. Our rebrand was an outward representation of a major strategic pivot.

Some of the most well known brands have successfully pivoted. Wrigley Gum used to give away pieces of gum on the soap they sold. Facebook and YouTube began as dating sites. Even Avon began as a book business that gave away free perfume with a purchase. While these examples are drastic, they are all incredible pivots that recognized the advantage of changing strategy.

Being able to pivot as a social enterprise is one of the most important, yet difficult concepts to approach. How do you pivot your social enterprise without sacrificing your impact? Most social entrepreneurs do not begin their business based on a market need and opportunity; they begin based on targeting a social problem or a particular community group in need. The entire business model is often upside down. For this reason alone, pivots are of critical importance for social enterprises.

What is a pivot

Read more

Starting Lean: Soft Launches Help Avoid Hard Landings

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by Mike Baer

Adapted from material developed for a Third Path Initiative training module.

A very common story among highly excited entrepreneurs goes something like this: get a great idea, build the product, go whole hog to market, wait and lose a lot of money. It’s equivalent to the leadership anti-mantra “ready, fire, aim.” I call this the “emotional/entrepreneur syndrome” where any action is preferred to analysis and patience.

Contrast that with a less common but much wiser approach. Get an idea, test the idea, check out the landscape, build a sufficient product to try out, go lightly to market, listen, and adjust. Boring? Not at all…unless you just get off on failure.

This approach has been called many things over the years. It’s not new. Soft opening. Soft launch. Lean startup. Trial and error. Jesus put it this way:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him… – Luke 14:28-29, ESV

Out of context, I admit but true nonetheless. Take your time and do it right.

Here are the steps I’d use if I was doing another startup. After my initial ideation, testing the market, and market research, I’d: Read more

The Power of Dignity Restored: Business in the Heart of a Community

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Read Part 1

Getting to Market with a Detour

From tree to table, the average coconut oil has likely changed hands 9 times. Each change of hands hikes up the price and disconnects the consumer from the farmer. By the end, a hierarchy of profits has left the farmer, who usually needs it most, with the least amount of money. “On one side, we see the farmers making so little from their work while the middlemen and big oil companies reap the profits. Then on the other side, many in the West are asking questions of brands like: Who are the people behind the brand that actually made this product? How are they treated? Is my purchase feeding an oppressive system or helping people? We saw an opportunity to benefit both sides.” remarked Erik.

Dignity has had a goal of connecting the local farmer to the global export market, but did not always know how reaching that goal would unfold. A successful Kickstarter campaign in May 2015 provided the necessary funds for Dignity to detour from their original plan of selling in bulk and instead develop their own brand for retail sales. They became the direct bridge between the farmers as well as factory workers, and the end users. This tangible connection between customer and producer has shaped the position of their brand in the market. Read more

Restoring Dignity Through Business: Dignity Coconuts’ Story

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“We’re fighting this multi-billion dollar evil with a peashooter,” Stephen told Don as they wandered around the exhibition hall at an anti-human trafficking convention. At every booth they were encountering stories of abuse and human suffering. There were also stories of rescue and restoration… However, the sheer scale of global slavery seemed to dwarf the efforts of those at the front-lines fighting against it. Most organisations working with trafficked communities can only provide jobs for 5, 10, 20 or so people. This is great and essential work; giving meaningful work and a stable livelihood is central to people getting out and staying out of slavery. Yet the need for stable jobs far surpasses the supply. Don and Stephen came away with a burning question: How can we employ a growing number of people vulnerable to, or rescued from, human trafficking?

A year later in 2009 Stephen Freed and Don Byker left their long-held positions and set out to research business opportunities. They realised that if they were really going to tackle the underground slavery industry, they would need multiple, substantially-sized businesses that could employ hundreds or thousands of people. They looked at micro-enterprise solutions, but realised that there is a limit to how effective those can be. Not everyone is an entrepreneur with aspirations to own their own business – and micro-businesses rarely scale to create thousands of jobs. As they researched they found, as economists have discovered, that the key to solving poverty and bringing widespread economic development to communities is a growing number of SME-sized businesses. Read more