Kipnis Corollaries for sustainable marketing success:

Here are some rules that mostly fall into the "blinding flash of the obvious" category, but we find the corollaries sometimes get missed. This is, by no means a complete list, but it's a decent starter set.

We can set up the systems to help avoid many of the pitfalls. Frequently, marketing success is as much about avoiding mistakes as flashes of brilliance and inspiration.

Your marketing systems define the outcome.

• Avoid ticking off (usually that means surprising) your customers. Be "customer oriented" in all communications.
• If you can’t raise performance, reduce expectations. Always under-promise.
• Avoid easy mistakes (errors on signs, brochures, feature sheets, etc.) Watch the basics.
• Buyer retention is as important as making the sale.
• Anyone in your organization - or in your support companies - who comes in contact with your customers is part of your sales team.  Are they all getting the "company line"?
• In any transaction, events and contacts during the last 10% of the relationship will dominate the customer’s perception of their experience.
• A happy homeowner will cost less in customer service than an unhappy customer.
• Sales to referrals and repeat buyers cost less to generate and service than those to new customers.

Know your buyer profile.

• Know your competition. And, be realistic about defining the competition.  Every project has competition.
• Value is in the mind of the buyer.  Avoid "feature wars".  Include only standard features that are most important to most of your buyers.  Any included features that the buyer doesn't value, or missing high perceived-value items that are left out will harm the competitive value of a project.
• It is easier and more cost-effective to create product that matches available prospects than to create traffic that matches the product.
• It’s more cost-effective to increase the conversion percentage of existing traffic than create additional traffic.

With brief surveys and focus groups conducted with prospects and buyers, we can help confirm your buyer profile(s), assess customer satisfaction and optimize the perceived value of your products.

Work the fundamentals. A passing game is more effective if you have a credible ground game.

• In sales – as in most sports - brilliance is good; consistency is better.  As in most sports the "win" usually goes to the player that makes fewer mistakes.
• Train and interact with your staff regularly. Entropy will undo any training surprisingly quickly.
• In the absence of a clear and actively supported procedures manual, management and staff will develop divergent views of their roles over time.

Let us assess your sales and training programs.