National Clothesline

We’re remarkably successful at making just about everything overly complicated. Just give us a chance and we’ll do it. Almost any document written by a lawyer is prima facie evidence in support of this thesis.

Life insurance is another example of a product that lost its way into a labyrinth of verbal nonsense. As one life insurance executive says, “There’s nothing complicated about it. Life insurance is a guarantee to pay when you die.”

That’s insurance made simple. Yet the industry has made the product so convoluted that even its own salespeople need back up experts to explain it.

Fortunately, everything isn’t this way. A week or so before Christmas across the nation, thousands of business executives stand on street corners, in malls, and at supermarkets ringing bells to help fill Salvation Army kettles.

Every major corporation and thousands of smaller businesses take special pride in making charitable donations, sponsoring community relations programs, and offering their owners and executives for service on non-profit boards of directors.

As a nation, we take pride in being helpful. The cynics may say that we’re attempting to assuage our guilt for our “me first” attitudes on the one hand and greed on the other.

The cynics aside, we like thinking of ourselves as “doing good” and being helpful. The image of the Boy Scout coming to the rescue by helping someone cross the street is engrained in our psyches.

When Bank of America announced that it was committing more than $700 billion to community efforts, the public response was positive, not cynical. Even though the bank may harbor less than noble motives, it was answering the question, “How can we help?”

There’s a valuable lesson in all this for marketing and sales, disciplines that often suffer from a lack of focus. On the one hand, everyone is an expert when it comes to creating a marketing program. Or so they think.

Then, there are the marketers who pontificate with their seemingly authoritative studies and latest theories from the marketing guru of the moment. They talk about CPM, CRM and ROI and the rest of it as if they are unveiling the Ten Commandments.

The concepts can be valuable and they can make significant contributions to the marketing process. At the same time, however, it’s easy to get buried in confusing language and seduced by the latest and greatest “concepts.”

So, what’s the point? When you cut to the core, marketing and sales focuses on a single question: “How can we help?” If you don’t understand this issue, you can’t understand either marketing or selling.

If this is the fundamental premise, then where can we go for a model?

Although it may come as a surprise to some, it’s the non-profit sector that offers the clearest guidance as to what for-profit organizations should be doing. Why is this so? Whether it’s Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Boys and Girls Clubs or local social service agencies, each receives financial support and public approval because it’s perceived as meeting a worthwhile need.

These organizations thrive and grow because they fulfill the mission of finding ways to respond to the needs of their constituencies. It’s this simple. If they lose their sense of mission, they fail.

The non-profit model can be extremely useful in the for-profit sector. Here are several thoughts on why asking the “How can we help?” question can benefit businesses large and small:

1. Force the focus on the customer. From a marketing and sales perspective, far too much time, energy and money goes into getting the customer to do what we want, to accept what we feel is important and to buy what we want to sell. Far too little thought goes into figuring out how we can help meet customer objectives.

This approach deserves a big, fat label: “Yesterday’s business philosophy.”

“We must sell 107 cars in the next 36 hours,” blares the radio ad. Such ignorance only reinforces the common belief that car dealers can’t be trusted. Asking customers to behave in ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with what they believe to be their best interests won’t work.

On the other hand, the Costco-type warehouse stores grasped the “How can we help?” issue. They responded to a need to go beyond discount and to provide meats, groceries and other products packaged in larger quantities. It’s good for the consumer and Costco.

Or take a successful hardware store operating in the direct shadow of a pair of Home Depot stores. It’s Curry Ace Hardware in Quincy, MA. The moment you walk through the door, there’s a competent salesperson to take you to the right department of this relatively small, 4,500 s/f store and help you find exactly what you need. With super-fast check out, getting out is as easy as getting in.

While Curry prices are competitive, price is irrelevant because the service is so superior. The store’s success is built on a “How can we help?” focus.

2. Force the focus on the benefit to your target market. Sergio Zyman, Coca-Cola’s former top marketing officer is on the right track when he says that much of what passes for innovation in companies is really a sign of boredom. Everyone wants the excitement that comes from creating something new.

Zyman learned this being part of the team that introduced the ill-fated “New Coke.” Heinz “Funky Fries” is another example––chocolate-flavored and blue-colored fries. Can’t you hear the Heinz marketing people? “Wow! Wow! Wow! This is great!” Unfortunately, kids didn’t think so. “Yucky.” They went into the trash after less than a year on supermarket shelves.

The Gerber people came out with “Gerber Singles,” small servings of fruit, vegetables and entrees in their baby food jars. That was a loser. Adults couldn’t relate to eating out of baby food jars––and the product made them feel lonely.

While these products were a good fit for the companies’ existing product lines, they were a poor fit for the consumer. They failed to meet a need or help the customer in any way.

The powerful tendency to go from one marketing tactic to another and to constantly look for the latest and greatest product to fire up enthusiasm and sales is the problem, not the solution.

Zyman is right in suggesting that the focus should be on figuring out ways to deliver whatever we sell more effectively. And that means spending time and effort answering the “How can we help?” question.

The insurance agency that offers 24/7 claims reporting and online customer information updating is helping. The auto dealer that is open for service in the evening and all day Saturday is helping. The bank in the supermarket is helping.

There’s nothing in all this that even remotely shouts, “We want to sell you something.” The message is on finding new ways to deliver the products and services we offer in more helpful ways. And that works.

3. Force the focus on what’s important. While wine has grown in popularity, it continues to be intimidating. Sure, there are the wine enthusiasts who enjoy intimidating the rest of us with their talk of bouquet, etc. and encyclopedic knowledge of individual wines.

What about the rest of us who have other interests in life? Well, John Casella, the Australian winemaker who brings us Yellow Tail Chardonnay and Shiraz, gets it right. He says, “People can’t be bothered by all the hype and nonsense of wine. They just want to drink it.”

Yeah, that’s it. Casella deserves the “Marketer of the Decade” award. Who wants to feel stupid for not being able to come up with some asinine-sounding explanation if we happen to like a particular wine?

In his simple, direct comment, Casella set us free simply to enjoy a wine. This is the type of help that resonates with customers. And it also pays off. Casella’s winery now sells 20 million cases a year of Yellow Tail––and counting!

4. Force the focus on what grabs customer attention. Salespeople make the biggest blunder when they assume they know what’s important to a customer. Dunkin Donuts’ “cinnamon stick” is a case in point. The company has learned that gooey doesn’t do it. We don’t want our fingers and mouths covered with sticky stuff, particularly while driving. The “cinnamon stick” comes in a neat little pocket so it’s easy to hold and eat with one hand. On top of that, you can have it warm if you like. That’s a winner.

In the same way, Volvo grabs customer attention with a little device that silences a cell phone ringer when you make a turn so as to avoid unnecessary distraction. There’s also a tiny side-view mirror camera that helps avoid problems of changing lanes.

Downside protection is a huge issue with consumers when it comes to financial products. This is one reason why the life insurance industry’s new guarantees are gaining enthusiastic acceptance.

It isn’t always new, exciting, breakthrough products that attract buyers. Rather, it’s what’s helpful in ways that make sense to customers.

Far from a softheaded or maudlin approach, the “How can we help?” question calls for a demanding analysis of what we’re doing in marketing and sales to focus on the customer.

Only when we’re helping can we be sure we’re not only serving the customer but the company’s objectives as well.