In search of authenticity
pharmafile | July 19, 2011 | Feature | Sales and Marketing |
We don’t have a sales consultant in front of us in that situation. There is nobody to demonstrate and reassure us. As consumers, we develop an instinct for things through good and bad experiences.
In a faster-response world, partnership agreements with suppliers assume greater importance than ever. As providers of goods and services, the net we can cast for solid, dependable component suppliers is wider than ever. Many will be quick to respond to invitations for tender against our specification and deadline requirements.
Getting it right, on time, first time, every time, is a tall order but this is what organisations require. Buyers need to know that it does exactly what it says on the agreement. Yet so many know what it feels like to find that their website or network has crashed again.
Even ‘Toyota’ get it wrong occasionally and yet people trust them to put things right – authenticity. We develop an instinct when talking about deals and transactions over the phone. Some people we tend to trust at their word at first contact, enabling us to not worry about the small print which we know is coming in the written agreement that follows in the post.
The internet has passed the power to the consumer. It is faster and people have become more decisive than ever. Very few people search beyond the first two pages. We have to be quick when we communicate. The consumer sets up communication portals of their own when they wish to. We are endorsed or we are damned very quickly.
How does the market leader achieve its level of stature as it expands its customer franchise year on year, and then goes on to win the best in-licensing exclusives around the world? Look at business to business consulting. Increasingly, university lecturers as well as business to business consultants publish what they know. You often see their intellectual property freely available on their websites. People don’t buy what they know. They buy what they can DO and consultants realise this.
The employee also seeks authenticity.
The originator once watched a sales director in action. In both multinationals where this individual led teams of eighty to over a hundred, it was obvious. The whole field force would go through a brick wall for him. Everyone had decided. He was authentic.
Here are two scenarios:
In the Middle East, relationship selling was for years the norm. Very often, in a country like Saudi Arabia, the doctors and the reps are both from Cairo, so social exchange frequently characterises the conversation. But in a head to head fight between two competing brands, it’s not a personal relationship that wins the day. It is authenticity.
How well does your team know your boss? It seems pretty obvious that if the organisation really is transparent, they know him or her pretty well. The employee starts with high expectations, in exactly the same way that person does as a consumer buying new products and services. This is a particularly important issue in multi-zone or country contexts with individuals working in remote locations for long periods.
Things do go wrong. Employees must feel that they know the organisation ‘at large’.
In any context, authenticity is a function of those perceiving it.
Who are the gurus, the pioneers, the trailblazers? They are the people who impose rigour on the organisation in the face of competition. They fall into two groups. There are the trailblazers, like Maslow, MacGregor, Levitt, Hertzberg, Ogilvy, Rackham, Vance Packard, to name but a few of them. They point the way.
Then there are the team managers who impose the rigour, or authenticity of process and outcomes. So how does the employee know that the team manager is authentic?
If the employee doesn’t ‘feel’ that, the organisation is perceived to be falling short as well, by definition.
‘Leader’ is an instrument to facilitate consideration of these issues, a programme run in house by senior management through a sequence of modules to address the operational agenda. It is also a coaching programme. Teams become more cohesive as the agenda sharpens. Coaching and focused dialogue are hallmarks of what Charles Handy calls ‘the learning organisation’. ‘Leader’ is available for in-licensing on a country or corporate basis.
‘Marketeer’ prompts groups of protagonists to address the most difficult issue facing any organisation, whether it is a charity, a school or a company – how to get and keep a customer. We can win the business once. But if the customer does not feel that the solution provided is authentic, we lose it in seconds.
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