Buy success, not just technology

Laura Ramos from Forrester had a great phrase in her recent Keynote speech in Berkeley, "Business buyers buy success, not just technology". As someone engaged in the business of helping companies use their success to sell I kinda like this :o)

It's not the widget

I met with lots of people last week that seemed to share the opinion that lower marketing budgets = a clear mandate for a self-service customer reference model.

Sure this is logical for low-level activities with pre-approved content (quotes and case studies) however the most spangly of widgets does not replace relationships with sales teams and the organisational buy-in that required to be successful at providing good customer references; preventing reference customer burn-out.

Building another one-stop-shop will not change the typical behaviour of a sales person and defining how potential customers will engage with your company to satisfy their reference requests is nothing short of arrogant.

Applications play an important role but are simply a tool; the reality is you can build it and they won't come.

Social Media = Web 2.0? I think not

Had a great time in Berkeley last week at the 09 Customer Reference Forum. Lots of buzz around social media however I think it's time we looked again at some definitions: Social media can pretty much be defined as 'online 2-way communications/communities/tribes' however what it is not is 'anything digital' or 'web 2.0'.

While I think of it, does social media have to be online? hmm...

Videos and podcasts are cool however they are no more interactive than a PDF; surely customer-approved content is not the same as customer-created content or uncontrolled conversations?