Advice for B2B companies about looking at marketing and sales as a customer service, not just to exploit value

1. Transformation of B2B marketing/ sales
…in changing times
Are you prepared to serve?
Mark Linder, WPP
600 Minutes BtoB Marketing & Sales
15.10.2008, Crowne Plaza, Helsinki
-1-

2. Topics
• Disruption!....and opportunity
• Marketing as a service
• Serving, not selling
• What does it mean for your proposals
-2-

3. Disrupting the mood…
-3-

4. We are in the midst of the horror of a crisis –
major dislocation, fundamental discontinuities
-4-

5. Increased velocity of change
-5-

6. Interdependence = complexity, uncertainty,
opacity, turbulence
-6-

7. Interdependence creates domino or ricochet
effects, amplifies the effects of the risks.
“Black Swans” on the increase
(1) crises, like ideas, products and
impressions travel fast
(2) little causes can have big effects
(3) changes happen dramatically,
not gradually
-7-

8. -8-

9. Less trust…
More than 8 in 10 Americans do not trust the
government to do what is right, the highest
ever recorded in a Times/CBS News poll
-9-

10. We face unquantifiable uncertainties
Human nature hates uncertainty
- 10 -

11. “The 21st century is not for tidy minds”
-- Martin Sorrell
- 11 -

12. What will happen?
- 12 -

13. The global downturn will last for at least several
months, possibly several years
- 13 -

14. ALL assets will find a more realistic value
- 14 -

15. Even the “smartest guys” (Paulson, Bernanke, Trichet,
let alone the Presidents and Prime Ministers) don’t
understand the full implications of recapitalization
- 15 -

16. Dissociating the signals from the noise is a
daunting task
- 16 -

17. We’ll live in a world of much greater regulation
and higher taxation
- 17 -

18. The world will become more “local”
- 18 -

19. Simplicity will prevail
Quantitative models will be disregarded
- 19 -

20. Experience will be valued, again
- 20 -

21. Inexpensive pastimes – like the lost art of
conversation -- will become very popular!!
17 year-olds might discover their grandparents
are pretty cool
- 21 -

22. Will the global balance of power be shifting?
Too early to tell…
- 22 -

23. Reverse globalization
- 23 -

24. Worldwide aspiration (anger?) will keep growing
We live in a world in which the top 10% own
85% of everything, a world in which 1,000
people at the top control assets worth twice
those held by the bottom 2.5 billion
- 24 -

25. The “great reconvergence” between the East
and West will speed up. The shift to an Asian-
centric world may accelerate
- 25 -

26. Reverse globalization, reverse flows of capital,
Sovereign Wealth Funds’ investments, direct
acquisitions, or anything else – this is going to
be a defining issue of the coming years and
decades
- 26 -

27. The greater the crisis and the deeper the
recession, the more relevant
quot;reverse globalizationquot; becomes
- 27 -

28. What kind of opportunity does this create?
- 28 -

29. Your customers’ “back to basics” approach and
desire for interpersonal relationships may be a
response to this confusion and a desire to return
to a simpler time
- 29 -

30. Perhaps this creates an opportunity to listen
harder, better. Listen more, sell less.
Rediscover the art of conversation in a B2B
context…
- 30 -

31. Businesses will want to “retreat” to local…they
will be scared to globalize
- 31 -

32. Perhaps there are market-entry “bargains”
For example, highly debt-dependent businesses (ie
Russia) will be vulnerable…
(will be a need for distribution experts)
- 32 -

33. The equation:
Stable Finnish approach
+ global mindset
+ market uncertainties
= opportunity
- 33 -

34. Perhaps marketing will (once again) become a service
Perhaps selling will (once again) become about listening
and solving problems
- 34 -

35. You are doing a proposal in this environment…
how could it be different?
- 35 -

36. Think about structured listening…
- 36 -

37. ASKING about strengths and weaknesses
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
STRONG BRAND MAJOR NAME
NOT WORLD
IDENTITY AD AGENCIES
CLASS IN EVERY
SERVICES
STRONG RESEARCH DISCIPLINE
AGENCIES PORTFOLIO NOT WORLD
CLASS ON
QUALITY & BREADTH GLOBAL BASIS
OF AGENCIES
GLOBAL SCALE
SOLID / WEAK ON
OPERATIONS
“CORPORATE” CREATIVITY
MARTIN
SORRELL’S
LACK OF
LEADERSHIP JUST A HOLDING
KNOWLEDGE
FORWARD- COMPANY
AMBITION
GROUP ABOUT WPP
THINKING
CONSITUENTS
LEVEL COMPETITIVE not
STRONG LACKS CO-OPERATIVE
BRITISH FINANCIAL COMMITMENT TO STRUCTURE
MANAGEMENT SHARED
LEARNING LOSING
PERSONAL
LARGE EMPIRE M & A’s HIGH
TOUCH?
OVERHEADS:
EXPENSIVE - 37 -

38. Think about a “theme” for your proposal…
How do you tell the story of your proposition, in
a way that relates to the customer’s
uncertainty?
- 38 -

39. Possible themes
• Transformation – long-term change
• Flat world – falling barriers, technology overcoming barriers
• Innovation – harnessing ideas in a “reverse globalization” world
• Multiplicity and diversity – managing complexity
• Evolution – fulfillment of aspiration in fast-growing markets
• Sustainability – output without depleting finite resources
• Global village – customer and supplier intimacy, overcoming distance
- 39 -

40. EY example
- 40 -

41. Think about education
- 41 -

42. Marketing as a form of education
- 42 -

43. Annual report as an educational tool
- 43 -

44. Think about co-creation…
- 44 -

45. Co-creation allowing customers to design their own
(c) Venkatraman, 2008
- 45 -

46. Marketing crossing the work-play boundary
Connect
Live
Work Create
Play Consume
- 46 -

47. Think about your price-carrier vs
non-product value-add
- 47 -

48. The beer garden: non-product value-add
- 48 -

49. Smaller is value-adding
A producer of a petroleum-based compound used
for setting concrete railroad ties found that it could
reduce the price of its product by 20 percent by
changing the packaging size to exactly meet
mixing specifications.
The smaller packages were precisely what the
customers wanted–
and were willing to pay extra for.
- 49 -

50. There are no commodities in B2B
There are only noncreative managers who think
they produce commodities
- 50 -

51. Think how to add value -- about customized
servicing models
- 51 -

52. No one-size-fits-all
Marketing different service models to different customers
Model C
Full integration
Model B
Key Account
Manager
(Informal
coordination)
Model A
Preferred supplier
(No coordination)
- 52 -

53. Think about thought leadership experiences…
digital
sustainability
risk, etc
- 53 -

54. Digital shared experience
- 54 -

55. Sustainability as a practice
- 55 -

56. Sustainability in retail
- 56 -

57. Write and publish thought-leadership
- 57 -

58. …and what about the relationship
- 58 -

59. Focus more on core relationships, less on
conquests
- 59 -

60. Focus on the person -- not the position
- 60 -

61. Love your work -- enthusiasm is attractive and
contagious
- 61 -

62. Be genuinely interested in others
(Dale Carnegie: quot;You will be more successful
by being interested in others' success than by
trying to get them interested in your successquot;)
- 62 -

63. Always be generous with your time and wisdom
- 63 -

64. Help others with no expectation of receiving
anything in return
- 64 -

65. Give some trust to start the trust-building
process
- 65 -

66. Experience matters more, now….give it freely to
help build trust
- 66 -

67. Remember, establishing a mood makes it
easier to sell a thought
- 67 -

68. The importance of establishing the right mood…
- 68 -

69. Exemplify integrity at all times through honesty,
consistency, reliability, and discretion
- 69 -

70. Your reputation is what they say about you
….after you have left the room
- 70 -

71. Transformation of B2B marketing/ sales
…in changing times
Be prepared to serve!
Mark Linder
minder@wpp.com
- 71 -

72. Thanks to….
• Eddie Bowman, Rainbow Insight, Carl Halksworth
• Andrew Sobel
• Martin Sorrell
• Alex Nieminen and Pauliina Valpas
• A. Blanton Godfrey
• Tim Bell
• David Kenning
- 72 -

73. Thank you.
- 73 -