Marketing Product Management Professional Growth

Product Marketing Using the VSNC Model

December 11, 2011 – 2:25 pm

I recently read this great answer on Quora to the question: What are great ways to perfect one’s presentation skills?  The answerer, Edmond Lau, referenced a model created by MIT’s Professor Patrick Winston, who has a lecture series on “How to Speak.”  Winston believes the most effective structure for a presentation, or any marketing opportunity for that matter, follows this sequence:

  1. State your vision
  2. Explain the steps taken to turn vision into reality
  3. Announce the news with details
  4. Conclude with contributions that you or your team made

As you can imagine, many of the most effective marketing presenters use this model.  For example, Steve Jobs clearly utilizes the VSNC structure in Apple’s keynotes.

A more simplified version is Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” model; that is, follow the “Why -> How -> What” arrangement.  Mr. Sinek explains this approach in his 18-minute TEDx Talk (see below).  He points out that a lot of presentations are given backwards, What -> How -> Why, and are ineffective because your audience is most interested in the Why; therefore, that should be your main focus and should serve as your bait.

Sinek explains that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.  If you talk about what you believe in, you will attract others who share your belief and they will spread your message.  When it comes to product marketing presentations, you want to first talk about the benefits - the why – and then follow up with the features - the how and the what.

Sinek also demonstrates that this model is important to cross the chasm and spread the usage of your product beyond the innovators and early adopters.  The early majority and onward will not make a commitment to use your product until they see the “what” – meaning, until they see results from the early adopters and innovators.  In order to achieve market-wide adoption, you first need to win the hearts of the innovators and early adopters.  So how do you capture the commitment of this advanced group?  By telling them “why” – they will buy because they see the why and believe in the why.

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Apps Networking

LetsLunch.com

November 30, 2011 – 12:00 am

Really nifty idea.  It’s a “dating site” that connects professionals by setting them up for lunch.  Great opportunity to meet people whom you may never catch “out in the wild.”  You post the times you are available and your interests/industry and Lets Lunch does the match-making.  I think there’s even a rating system to rate the lunch – not sure how I feel about that, yet.  I signed up for it, but have yet to go out on a lunch meeting.  I will make it my goal to go out for lunch using LetsLunch by the end of January.

 

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Networking Professional Growth

Developing Your Deep Bump

November 29, 2011 – 11:30 pm

Part two of my “Never Eat Alone” blog series will cover best practices for creating the strongest relationship possible from brief encounters.  Keith Ferrazzi, author of “Never Eat Alone,” considers a “fast and meaningful” connection a “deep bump.”  Based on anecdotal evidence (read: personal observations), a skilled deep bumper can open doors of opportunities to connect with potential mentors and business partners – who are usually so busy that you will only catch them for a few vital minutes in your office hallway, on an elevator or at a conference – on a daily basis.

A deep bump is not an ice breaker to begin an extensive dialogue; rather, the goal is to make introductions and secure a followup meeting.  Thus, deep bumps are most useful at places where either party has limited time, such as at conference or networking event.

So how do you do it?  Get intimate!  What I mean is that you should go beyond business by asking questions and revealing yourself in a way that might make you feel vulnerable.  This is another example of the changing norms of professional interactions.  We’re all working so many hours a day that it’s not only commonplace, but preferable for our social and professional relationships to overlap.  Why regulate a professional connection to a shade of a friendship bond?  As with most things in life, you’ll be more successful if you plan and prepare.  If you know you’re going to meet someone at a conference or you plan on catching your company’s vice president in the hallway, do your research.  Find shared interests and connections so when you do get the chance to chat, you can talk less shop.  Here’s where you can do your research:

  1. Look at their LinkedIn profile – see what groups or hobbies they’ve listed, are you genuinely interested in any of those?
  2. Read their articles/blogs – think of a killer question or provide your unique perspective
  3. Be a Knowledge Broker - this is the most effective technique to create a deep bump because you have moved beyond discussing shared interest into showing that you have value and are worth their time.  You have tapped into what Keith calls their WIIFM station: “What’s In It For Me?”

So whether you want to create a deep bump to sell your product or to find a mentor, the goal is to leave the encounter having parlayed a time and date or an email / phone number to set up a followup.

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Networking Professional Growth

Becoming a Knowledge Broker

September 22, 2011 – 1:01 pm

I just finished reading the relationship building book, “Never Eat Alone” by professional relationship expert, Keith Ferrazzi.  Most other professional growth books that I have read leave me thinking, “interesting, but how can I use this now?”  When it comes to advice, I find that the more immediately actionable it is, the more likely I’ll use it.  To me, repeated action leads to internalization which leads to habit.  Never Eat Alone is filled with advice that is immediately applicable to twenty-somethings looking to accelerate their career.  Here are the topics that I think are most valuable for “professional newbies” and which I’ll write about over a series of posts:

  1. Becoming a Knowledge Broker: Use your time to become a thought leader
  2. Developing Your Deep Bump: Getting off on the right foot when meeting someone for the first time
  3. Staying Relevant
  4. Building a Personal Brand
  5. Finding Your Personal Board of Directors

Becoming a Knowledge Broker

Keith observes that the old way to create and display value as an individual was to hoard information.  Today the system “is more akin to social arbitrage” – relationships and information are more abundant than any other time in the past.  Thus, the best way to create value is not by shielding others from accessing your network and knowledge, but by opening your resources up and being a switchboard to connect people to people and people to information.

For professional newbies, we might not know any key people to connect together, but where we do have an advantage is in time.  We have the time to create and distribute knowledge.  The aim should be towards providing knowledge for people you want to grow your relationship with.  So here’s an easy step by step on how to become a knowledge broker:

Creating Content

Creating content is pretty simple.  As a matter of fact, we’ve done it plenty of times before in high school and college – it’s like writing a book report.  Identify the current thought leaders in your industry, find their website/blog or a book they recently published, read their content and then summarize the Steak, add in the sizzle and tell your audience why it should be important to them.

Distributing Content

If content is King, then distribution is King Kong

The reason why distribution of content is important is because people are busy and people do not change their browsing habits often.  Research where your audience will be and when will they be there.  I plan to distribute my content in two ways: in an email newsletter and over social networks.  Once I identify the channels, I need to find the right time to get my message in front of my audience.  I may discover that my audience is most active on LinkedIn in the morning, Twitter in the afternoon and Facebook at night so that’s when I will send them links to my blog or an article I think they would find interesting.  If your audience is active throughout the day, speak when there is the least amount of noise, that usually means in the morning.  I also find that LinkedIn is a great place to demonstrate thought leadership – most professionals check into it a few times a week and there tends to be very little noise.

Your approach does not have to follow my formula strictly.  The key takeaway is for you to become knowledgeable about a subject either purposefully (researching and writing that book report) or organically (providing knowledge based on personal experience) and put yourself in situations where you can broadcast your knowledge.  Over time, you will be able to connect with awesome, interesting and influential professionals and expand your network which allows you to add even more value as a social arbitrageur by no longer only connecting people with information, but now you can also connect people with people.

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Digital Media

What is retargeting in plain English?

September 16, 2011 – 1:42 am

I recently read an Albert Einstein quote that really resonated with me, and I try to embrace it everyday whenever anyone asks me a question about something complex:

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Explaining it simply is a win-win for me and my audience because it gives them a digestible package and helps me think about the big picture – which is refreshing for me and important for my professional growth since a lot of my day is consumed in the details.  I am still developing my balance between the sausage-making details and oversimplification.  I kept that in mind when I recently answered a question on Quora.  The question was, “What is retargeting?”  There were a lot of great technical answers.  I took a different approach and tried answering it a more simple way – in layman’s terms – through an analogy.

There are two steps to retarget a person:
Step One: Identify that the user is interested in your product and place a cookie in their web browser stating that they are interested
Step Two: Whenever you see the user again, show them an ad for your product because you know they are interested in your ad based on the data in the cookie

I like to explain concepts/processes using analogies – especially concepts from the digital world. I hope to add to your understanding by explaining it a bit differently:

Step One:
Let’s say you’re walking down a street and decide to stop inside a Footlocker. Once you walk in, a Footlocker employer slaps a sticker onto you that says that you have visited a Footlocker. After you’re done browsing in the store, you walk out and go home. In digital advertising speak, you’ve been “cookied.”

Step Two:
Weeks later, you’re on a totally different street. On that street, Footlocker employs a human billboard that changes the ad depending on the person that’s walking down the street. It costs Footlocker money every time they show an ad, so sometimes they don’t show anything at all. If you haven’t changed your clothing – analogous to clearing your cookies – then you’re still wearing the sticker. The Footlocker human billboard sees the sticker and is excited to see you! So they quickly show you an ad for Footlocker products. Now you have been retargeted to.

And if you feel inclined, the human billboard will even escort you to the closest Footlocker – analogous to clicking on an ad and going to the product’s page.

What do you think about how I answered?  Too general that it missed key concepts or too much detail?

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