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Last night three chancellors stood in front of a nation and tried to sell themselves and their politics. They didn't do very well. In fact, they pretty much ticked off every possible sales no no, which must have delighted their respective party leaders. One spent much of his time explaining why his product hadn't worked for 13 years, but would do in the future. One chose to gloat about his product non-stop and the other chose to not really mention his product at all, just slate the other two's product. No one addressed the underlying need, no one really listened to what the customer really wanted and no one did anything but answer their own self obsessed questions with scripted one liners that didn't mean a whole lot to anyone. Politicians spend most of their lives trying to sell. Their policies, their views, (their second homes now too probably). Could someone explain then, how they are possibly so damn bad at it? If I'd just been sat in a room listening to those 3 pitches I'd be thinking to myself 'maybe we can go without.'
Something that seems to be evolving within our development, is the need to surface different varieties of news at different stages of the sales cycle. Depending on how far down the sales funnel you are, some news takes on more relevance and some takes on much less.For example, at very early stage all you're looking for is away in. If you specialise in marketing for example you're looking for a piece of news that says 'company X holding pitch for campaign' or 'company X ditches marketing agency.' Very straight forward, very specific. However, further down the line, when it comes to the crunch, you want more than that. What might not have been high priority before suddenly takes centre stage. Say their marketing manager has been caught up in a scandal and faces the chop, that could really mess things up from a sales point of view. Say the CEO has decided to reduce budgets across departments, looking to minimize spending in marketing, you need to know (although, probably don't want to...). It's vital to keep on top of goings on with potential customers. If you don't know exactly what's happening, how can you tailor what you're selling accordingly? The simple answer is, you can't.
The Times Online have taken the plunge then, and announced they are to charge for online content come June. It must be said, the timing of the announcement doesn't seem ideal, just two days after Alistair Darling shared the fact that everything else was going to cost tons more as well (if you're a cider drinking Times reader you must be considering a long drive off a short pier right now) but there we go, what's said is said. Will it work? Well, the problem with jumping first is that everyone can hang back and see how you get on, meaning that people can still get a free service from other providers. For a real chance of success, the newspapers could have all held hands and leapt together but as it is, the onlookers will be preparing their plan B's and C's whilst the Times takes all the impact. The emphasis is very much on them now. Of course, £2 a week doesn't seem much to access content but it's still more expensive than £0 a week. They will have to ensure that what they're offering is superior to those around them exploiting every technology available to them including driving mobile use using all the tools that are rapidly flooding the industry. Everybody's watching, and unfortunately for the Times, those jumping later are likely to learn lessons from this ground breaking decision.
One of the biggest concerns people have about using the semantic web (or to put it in Layman's terms, automated computer software) as a sales intelligence tool is the lack of human intervention they feel is involved. But rest assured, at least at Artesian anyway, we don't win a contract then leave the computer running, switch the office lights off and head to the nearest small Island for cocktails and pool parties. The software we use is a tool yes, a very efficient one at that, but the idea isn't to make it easy for us, it's to make it easy for the customer. We're very aware that we still need to keep one step ahead and we're also very aware that customers will want to tweak results and search different areas of interest from time to time. Using machines to do the dirty work doesn't mean these changes and improvements can't be implemented. In fact, what it means is, if you do want to track something different, rather than manually searching 1,000 sources to see if you can find anything interesting on the subject, the software will do it for you. There is a misconception that once the solution is integrated there is no turning back and no moving forward. Take it from a man who spends all day, everyday constantly refining, researching and improving search techniques, there really is.
If you're sat in the Facebook boardroom today looking on at this graph my guess is you're also smoking a cigar with your feet on the desk smiling very contently. Let's bear in mind here, that the graph above charts the progress within ONE year.Facebook is now the most visited website in the US so it's no wonder people are questioning it's desires to enter the search market. Facebook have been fairly coy on their objectives in this field, largely using the social networking tag as a shield to cover up from competitors glaring eyes. But with figures like the ones above, you'd have to be crazy to not think about dominating more than one market. If Bing thought catching up with Google was going to be tough, they may have a threat coming up sharply on the inside rail that threatens to be even more of a challenge.
I love sales tips, genuinely, I can think of little better than spending an afternoon listening to endless advice about the best way to seal a day. Brush your hair to the right, smile at least fifteen times in a pitch and tie your laces in a double knot to show true commitment. Although all of this is probably very good advice I'm not sure if it will truly help in winning a customer.If someone has a leaking tap they probably won't care if you call on Wednesday, compliment their shirt or pat the dog. They probably just want you to fix the tap. So the plumbers job is not to sit on the front porch politely waiting for a pipe to burst, their job is to make sure that when there is a problem, they are the one picked to do the job.Having a job to do, a problem to fix is half the battle. By all means tie your laces in a double knot (it's just common sense really) but ultimately I'd focus on having something to sell that's actually going to suit the prospective buyer. If a plumber bought round a mop to fix a pipe, my guess is they probably wouldn't be allowed to fix it.
