synnovate

In the past companies dreamed up products,conducted market research and then force feed the outcome into a set of customers whose generic profile looked like the product would make money for the firm. However this model is flawed, particularly when one considers services and high value products. Marketing and product professionals need a new approach to the creation, design and delivery of services that engages the customer in a participative manner.

Participating in active relationships with consumers is a critical component of the journey to rapport 360. Building meaningful and active relationships requires creating experiences for customers that incorporate:

Feel – what are the issues or problems
Think – I think I have a solution
Know – educate the market
Do – Interact with the customer

Feel: Marketers need to engage the community of potential customers to identify what the key issues and problems they are facing today. Asking customers to become engaged means adapting a range of social networking technologies into the process of interaction.

Think: Engage the customers in the creation of the solution to the problem. That means bringing them in and talking to them either virtually or in person. Customer thinking will create a much deeper level of insight into the offer that is acceptable.

Know: What works and what doesn’t, who do the customers listen to for advice – who is leading the way in setting the trends in the market you want to target. When was the last time you took time to go and watch the customer in their environment.

Do: Use customers to help you tell the story and honestly seek to interact with them. Once you start on this part you must be committed to back it up, customers are very good at detecting falseness.

The Rapport 360 approach offers you the opportunity to walk through a participatory experiences where you review the opportunities for enhancing the participatory nature of you customer interactions.

Innovate In a Recession, YOUR CRAZY! we hear you scream at your computer screen. Recessions are a time for cutting costs and consolidating, not so and we will explain why! If the downturn is damaging your entrepreneurial spirit, we have good news for you: Recessions are historically ripe with opportunity for innovation. Don’t believe us? Read on.

 Time to change your mind-set: When the economy goes into a tailspin like it did in 2008. You have two options: either stick your head in the ground and hope it passes you by or innovate and emerge stronger than you were when the economy took the hit. Hiding and saving will not start you on your way to greatness but you can innovate your way there. Here are three simple principles that’ll help you focus on rekindling the spirit of innovation.

 Take a Reality Check – Relish the recessions. Firstly make sure your core business is strong you must protect your core business because a healthy business gives you the capacity to innovate.

 Don’t Go It Alone – Innovation is not the about the crazy genius, alone in their tool shed devising the idea of the century. Innovation is actually much more complex, its the integration of technology, business models and processes, all wrapped together. Successfull innovation is difficult to do alone, find the right partners and work together. Gather a group of diverse thinkers around a table to create a creative storm of ideas.

 Play To Your Strengths -A recession is an especially good time for innovators to build great relationships with loyal followers, becauise your competitors even if they are often good at community building, will be distracted during a downturn. However when the economy recovers, it will be open season on those customer but if you already own it, that gives you a tremendous advantage.

 Now lets look at the 5 Steps to Innovation that you should adopt.

 1. Apply Rigor – According to management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., 36 percent of top managers say they govern innovation in an ad hoc manner. Throwing people in a room and asking them to brainstorm, is the standard process of innovation. Yes, they’ll generate ideas, but ideas don’t have legs by which to leap off the white board. To be more hit than miss, establish a companywide process to brainstorm, test and implement ideas.

 2. Go Where Consumers Go – Get out in the marketplace be that offline or online and see what your customers are experiencing dealing with you, and your competitors, that is good and bad; find out what is not being solved or provided that is critical to them. Now you have a starting point to think about innovation.

 3. Learn From Other Industries – If you want to improve your interaction with customers, your after sales service, enhance your delivery processes, go and see how industry leaders are doing it, and use that knowlegde to focus your innovative efforts.

 4. Test Your Idea – Take the experts counsel: Long before you fall in love with your idea, show it to consumers to see if they love it too. Markets with money p[ressures don’t suffer bad ideas gladly, a period of decline with its intense selection pressures is a great time to test ideas.

 5. Get A Leading Edge - According to Boston Consulting Group, leaders who successfully cultivate innovation have the ability to change, tolerate ambiguity, assess and be comfortable with risk, balance passion and objectivity, and command respect. If you don’t fit that description, appoint someone who does.