| Marketing guru Harry Beckwith obviously knows his onions, that is how to top the best-selling success of his earlier book "" Selling the Invisibles. That explains the fresh and funny approach and clever formatting "" several hundred brief lessons full of metaphors and anecdotes. Each lesson ends with an aphorism that summarises the lesson in a nutshell. In short, pocket-sized and packed with nuggets of wisdom, Beckwith has sought to come out with a winner that you can finish while on a short flight. |
| Consider, for example, his trashing of benchmarking as a way to succeed because it only reveals what others do, which rarely is enough to satisfy, much less delight, today's clients. No client ever asked for ATMs, traveller's cheques, or Disneyland, and no one outside a few thousand techies asked for home computers. "Their creators simply created them, sensing that people would love them," Beckwith says. |
| This is the reason, the book argues, why the Japanese copy-and-refinement method didn't last long. The Japanese wanted to improve product quality and build at lower cost "" two huge American weaknesses at that time. This resulted in $ 700 VCRs that could be profitably sold for $ 400, and gave the Japanese a huge but temporary advantage. |
| American companies were able to copy the Japanese formula quickly, by tightening quality control and outsourcing their labour to lower-wage countries. |
| Beckwith is even able to take a simple thing like a name "" e.g. Kinko's "" and shows how that chain, through its name, was able to crush competition whose names all sounded alike (e.g. InstyPrint, SpeedyPrint etc). Or, take the example of Yahoo!, which, the author says, is a better name for a search engine than Lycos, or that colossal error of a name, Webcrawler. Why? Because its name resonates emotionally. It makes you smile. Because you have never heard a company name like it before. |
| You remember Yahoo! and chances are will forget to use its competitors for searches. Evocative names like this touch people and warm your sales calls. |
| The book makes a clever and convincing case for non-gimmicky ideas by pulling some valuable lessons out of the Seventies when consumers had infinitely fewer products and services to choose from, but seemed generally happier. The best part of the book are the snappy examples. |
| For example, in order to understand how to run a successful business, read the delightful chapter: 'Study Starbucks.' Howard Schultz, the inventor of Starbucks, understood the potential popularity of sidewalk tables. Sitting at one, you see not just the other diners, but the thousands of people who walk by. At that time, Americans had very few sidewalk cafes "" weather, zoning ordinances, and health codes all discouraged them. |
| Schultz leapt into this void and created Starbucks "" the sidewalk cafe and beatnik coffeehouse merged into one. Most of these outlets were literally on the sidewalk, and its walls were almost entirely glass to give a feel of their communal nature. The need for community and the need for status (Starbuck coffees are priced on the higher side) intersected at that moment, and Schultz located his coffee stores there "" and flourished. It's a great story of how Starbucks has been able to market its drinker, and succeeded. |
| At the other end of the spectrum is McDonald's. The idea that quality in a service is measured by the relationship between what a service promises and what it performs explains why on any day McDonald's customers will say they are satisfied while customers at five-star restaurants "" with much better food, service, and ambience "" will say they were disappointed. McDonald's can deliver less and still satisfy its customers because it promises less. |
| This reminds us that quality is not absolute, but relative; it is performance relative to promise. To ensure that you deliver quality, you must watch what you do and what you promise. |
| Beckwith also shows how companies find what he calls the white-hot centre of a product by finding the right spokesperson. He starts with the Nike/Reebok competition and how Nike recreated itself with its shoes time and time again, which is a prime example that one should never give up. |
| The book is a fascinating read. For, in these days of information overload, chances are your clients have been overwhelmed by the torrent of words. It's like whispering in a hurricane unless, of course, you can sort through the abundance of choices and information. |
| In less than 300 pages, What Clients Love seeks to provide you the filters that can help you achieve this. |
| All through the book, you will have a lingering feeling that will go "I knew that!" But that's the best part. This is a book full of loads of common sense, and, more importantly, a reminder of all the things that we sometimes forget as success blinds us. |
| As the marketing maven says: the book is the 'reset' button that needed to be set. |
| WHAT CLIENTS LOVE A Field Guide to Growing Your Business |
| Harry Beckwith Warner Business Books Price: Rs 756 |
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