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Toronto Office
(Head Office):
416.345.1559 or
800.333.4453

Vancouver Office:
604.601.3444 or
866.351.3444

Calgary Office:
403.257.6611 or
888.575.3131

TOPICS

1. Marketing in a Down Economy

During a time when everyone seems to be cutting prices to stay afloat, there is new, compelling evidence of a better way. A methodology that has been shown to actually grow, not just sustain, profitability during economic downturns has been identified. This talk presents the evidence and explains why this new method works, and what it takes to get started.

To learn more about this presentation, please read this Globe and Mail article

2. OVERVIEW:

Ken's expertise in business goes beyond traditional marketing topics, often assisting clients in explaining and selling new strategic directions to their employees. A synopsis of his recent talks is below; the most frequently requested are:

1. Your Next Big Thing

2. Staying On Top of Your Game

3. Competing Against Giants

4. Mission Critical Marketing

5. Innovation - Beyond New Products

6. Growing Your Top Line

7. Getting (and Keeping) Your Price

8. Delivering on Marketing Promises

9. Branding A Winner and Winning at Branding

10. Building and Managing Customer Loyalty

3. TOPICAL PRESENTATIONS:

A number of variable length (60-480 minute), subject-specific presentations can be found below.

1. Your Next BIG Thing

Ken will do a review of recent trends within your industry and search for other industries that have common characteristics. Ken will then combine that information with state-of-the-art research to present an "outsider’s view" of the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. This program has been done in several different sectors and is especially useful to those who are trying to communicate or get "buy in" for a new strategy or vision. (Note: at least two months lead time required)

2. Staying At the Top of Your Game (90 minutes)

Based on six years as a judge in the 50 Best Managed Companies in Canada contest, Ken looks at the characteristics of those who successfully re-qualified versus those who failed to do so. In the process, he discusses how companies can become "victims of their own success", not only through complacency but because they failed to understand the demands that growth would place upon their people, their systems and their way of doing business.

3. Competing Against Giants – How Smaller Firms Can Prosper

In an era where industry consolidation and mergers are creating scale-advantaged giants in almost every line of business, some smaller firms have found a way to not only survive but prosper. Learn how to capitalize on the disadvantages that large size can bring, how to leverage the unique qualities of small scale operations and how to use organizational arrangements to reap many of the benefits of large size without sacrificing the positive aspects of being a smaller enterprise.

4. Innovation – More Than New Products (4 hours)

Innovation has come to be equated with new product development. But innovation is much more, encompassing every aspect of business performance. Learn to identify areas ripe for innovation and how to promote a culture of innovation for employees.

5. Growing Your Top Line

In a world where industry boundaries are blurring and new forms of competition are emerging, every CEO is in a constant search for business development opportunities. The hardest part of that search is distinguishing what we "could" do from what we "should" do - moving away from finding sectors where we can "play" to sectors where we should "win". In this talk, Ken reviews the necessity of finding new revenue streams and discusses the keys to finding the right opportunities. A great session for companies that want business development to be part of everyone's job and not just the CEO’s.

6. Delivering on Marketing Promises One of marketing's major roles is to gain "trial" so that customers can experience and believe the claims that marketing and sales make. But too often firms spend so much energy delivering their claims to customers that they forget to communicate and motivate employees on making the right "first impression". The result? Great strategies with weak execution: a lost opportunity that can never be recaptured. In this session Ken covers what every manager and every employee needs to know about how to convert "trial" into customer satisfaction and long term adoption.

7. Building and Managing Customer Loyalty

Consumers today are awash in loyalty programs and business customers are constantly being encouraged to be a part or a customer relationship program (CRM). However, most of these programs offer little to either customers or suppliers that cannot be generated by a more traditional promotional program. In this session, Ken reviews the economics behind loyalty programs - why and how they work. By session end, your audience will understand why it takes more than "points and software" to succeed at building and maintaining loyal customers.

8. Setting and Merchandising Your Price (team taught 8 hours)

Price is commonly seen as a means to an end: we cut prices to build volume. But for the average North American firm, we need a 4% increase in volume for every 1% reduction in price just to keep profitability at an even keel: a ratio that makes it hard to build profitable market share. The first of this two-part session focuses on how to set prices for either retail or bid situations. The second module focuses on how we present prices to customers. For example, what’s better: a coupon or in-store discount?; everyday low price or featured pricing? Learn the full range of options available to you and when to use them.

9. Value-Added Marketing – Making It More Than a Hollow Promise

Learn how to augment your product or service with auxiliary features and services that not only add-value for clients but provide a basis for superior price realization or lower cost of service. Implications specific to client industry and situation are provided.

10. Branding a Winner and Winning at Branding (45-60 minutes)

A primer on the basics of branding and a case study (with videos) of the development of the McDonald’s brand and how McDonald’s became "a victim of its own success"

11. Internal Marketing – Getting Employee to "Buy" Your Vision and Plans

Marketing is most often associated with how we communicate and deliver value to customers. A considerable body of knowledge has been developed to assist them to that end. However, most organizations fail to use the same principles and concepts when communicating with their own employees. As a result, employees only "buy" into these ideas when coerced…or they don’t buy into them at all. Learn how to use marketing to insure that "promises made to customers are kept by employees".

12. Using "Experience" to Make Differentiation Profitable

Differentiation is usually associated with brand images and creative ways of presenting product and service quality in its most appealing and unforgettable form. The reason is simple: differentiated products command premium prices. But as more and more companies pursue this pathway to profitability, the cost of finding new ways to present old messages is rising and the probability of success is falling. Adding "experience" to the product or service offers a new way to achieve differentiation and, perhaps more importantly, develop a sustainable competitive advantage. Learn the bases of the experience-based marketing and the keys to staging experiences that resonate for both your customer and your bottom line.

13. Marketing for Profit (a.k.a. Survival in a World of Margin-Sucking Maggots):

Learn the four major sources of profit drain and how you can address them. Implications specific to client industry and situation are provided.

14. Branding, Positioning and Value Propositions– Putting Your Best Foot Forward

Learn how to present your value proposition (the six alternative basis for presenting ideas) and how to determine whether to brand at the product, category or corporate level. (Note: customized version for High Technology products and services is also available) Implications specific to client industry and situation are provided.

15. Selling Change Inside and Outside the Organization– A Marketing Approach

Learn how to use the tools of new product introduction and apply them to selling change programs within your organization. Implications specific to client industry and situation are provided.

16. The New Marketing – How Traditional Views Hurt Progressive Firms (2-4 hours)

Learn how and why marketing has moved from the so-called 4P’s to a more integrative and interactive discipline. Implications specific to client industry and situation are provided.

17. Relationship Marketing – Avoiding the Hype (4 hours)

Much has been made of the promise and potential of relationship marketing. However, recent evidence suggests that many organizations "talk" a better relationship than they provide, even though they may be spending thousands of dollars on new technology and programs. Why? Because they forget the basics: why we do it, how we do it and how we know whether it’s working. Find out how to avoid the most common problems in pursuit of superior customer relations.

18. Dealing With Distributors – Making Them True Partners (4-8 hours)

Distribution channels are a must for any business that seeks to reach a broad audience. But many firms enter distribution arrangements out of convenience as opposed to strategic reasons. The result: sooner or later conflict arises and relations with this vital business partner become more adversarial than mutually-beneficial. Learn the three key distribution objectives, how to prioritize them to reflect your overall business strategy, how their relative emphasis impacts on other decisions and how deal to channel conflict.

19. A Marketing Approach to Employee Acquisition & Retention

Do you believe that marketing and sales are essential to winning and keeping customers? Do you believe that marketing and sales can help generate deeper levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty? If you do, then substitute "employees" for "customers" and ask yourself "could we improve employee acquisition and retention by applying marketing techniques in the H.R. Arena?"

In this session Ken shows how today's best managed companies are finding innovative ways of "selling careers to employees". The trick? These high growth businesses approach the labour market using the same tools and concepts they apply in customer markets: in the process, they not only achieve greater levels of employee acquisition and retention but build organizations based on shared values and visions.

Learn the magic that can happen when marketing and HR break down the silos to tackle everyone's number one issue.
 

4. PROGRAMS:

NOTES:

1. All programs are customized to include examples specific to your industry or company.

2. Noted time periods are for presentation of subject matter and basic Q&A/discussion. Workshop sessions allowing for a more in-depth application of the material to your business can also be arranged.
PROGRAM 1: MISSION CRITICAL MARKETING (MCM)

Mission Critical Marketing is a collection of four modules that focus on the four drivers of business profitability: price realization; cost reduction; increased market share, and; product/market development. Each component examines the principle drivers of performance, ways of improving that performance, implication for how various marketing tools are used and the most common errors managers make in managing the area. In addition, managers are provided an inventory of diagnostic questions to help them identify the likely sources of leakages in profitability. In addition to the complete four-module program, modules can be used individually or in the combinations noted below.

Combination 1: Managing Margins

Module 1: Getting Your (Premium) Price (4 hours)

The average business experiences an 11% change in profitability for every 1% change in their price. Small wonder that businesses are increasingly looking at price realization as an objective in itself, instead of blinding cutting price in the hope of building business volume. Learn the five drivers of "what the market will bear" and how you can achieve significant and lasting differentiation.

Module 2: Reducing and Containing Costs (4 hours)

The average business experiences an 8% change in profitability for every 1% change in their costs. In addition, in commodity-like markets, where price premiums are difficult to realize, survival often depends on having "low cost producer" status. Learn how to "cut costs without damaging quality" and gain new insights into the application of operations-based methods and the use of e-business and other technologies to reduce service, marketing and selling costs.

NOTE: This two part series also examines the critical role of infrastructure, culture and process in executing price- or cost-based strategies. In the process, managers deal with key strategic issues such as "can we operate at both the high- and low-end of the market at the same time?

Combination 2: Managing Volumes

Module 3: Getting (and Increasing) Your Share of the Business (4 hours)

Market share has traditionally been the holy grail of marketing and sales. Too often, that objective has been pursued via either price cuts or increased marketing and sales spending. But the average firm gains only a 3% lift in profitability for every 1% gain in volume: and loses 11% and 8% for each 1% change in price and cost, respectively. As a result, many firms "buy share" and find profitability falls despite growing volumes. This is partly due to the high failure rate of share-building programs and to the conventional reliance on "customer acquisition" as primary source of new business. Learn the keys to "building profitable share" and how the principles of "lift, shift and retention" can lead to double digit improvements in profitability even at very small volume gains. In addition, managers learn the fine art of "customer selection"

Module 4: Finding the Right New Products and the Right New Markets (4 hours)

In many firms growth is opportunistic as opposed to being a planned and deliberate strategy. As a result, many initiatives fail. Even if successful, opportunistic firms often find themselves offering a collection of unrelated products or playing in unrelated markets with no potential to leverage their corporate portfolio. Learn the alternative means of growing your business, how to evaluate new product and market opportunities and how to choose between a growth strategy based on new technologies, new markets or new applications.


PROGRAM 2: MARKET DYNAMICS - CHANGES EVERY BUSINESS EXPERIENCES

Strategy is about taking control. However, there are market and competitive forces that shape the nature and extent to which control can be exercised. Some of these forces are unpredictable while others emerge in a more-or-less predictable manner. Learn the predictable changes that occur over the lifetime of any product or market, the forces that make them occur, the actions that can be taken in advance of their arrival and the reactions that can used after their arrival. In addition, learn the pattern of industry financial performance that usually accompanies this evolution and see why business strategies and corporate priorities may not always mesh.

PROGRAM 3: MARKET AND ACCOUNT PROFILING

It is often said that "marketing makes promises that the rest of the organization has to keep". One of the biggest challenges in developing and executing marketing and business strategies is securing "buy in": not just from marketing and sales but also from other functional areas. A big part of the problem is that, in the absence of large-scale research studies, marketing and business strategies are often presented as a "leap of faith" and often dismissed on the basis of anecdotal evidence. Market profiling is an easy-to-use methodology for building strategic consensus and translating that consensus into tactical objectives. Learn how to translate responses to three simple questions into:


• The ability to determine whether a segment or account should be won or lost
  
• A measure of the strength of the leader's position;


• The ability to consider the impact of specific cost-reduction or quality-enhancing initiatives;


• The ability to perform a wide range of sensitivity analyses on changes in market or competitive position;


• The ability to identify alternative tactical programs for translating a strategy into action;


• Answers to the following questions:
- What do I have to do to continue winning?

- What changes do I absolutely have to make?

- Where could I spend money on customer eduction?

- Where and how could new technology help?

- Where could I cut costs without losing competitive standing?

- What current programs are unlikely to generate significant results?


This program is a perfect followup to Mission Critical Marketing or can be offered alone. Hands-on workshops in the use of the technique can also be accommodated (allow four hours, in addition to the presentation, for workshop sessions).