“The magic is in the product…You've got to live with your product. You've got to get steeped in it. You've got to get saturated with it.”

Bill Bernbach - Advertising Age Magazine’s Advertising Person of the Century

Bill Bernbach was the creative genius behind some of the most profitable advertising campaigns ever launched. His firm, Doyle Dane Bernbach, helped clients sell billions of dollars of goods and services.  A key reason for their success was the ability of DDB’s creative team to find the magic in their client’s goods and services.

At Positive Response we take the same approach.  We even call our process Finding Your Magic. This thorough and detailed approach typically involves five steps:

Step One – With your direction and help your Positive Response team will begin the process of researching and understanding your company and its products and services. If appropriate, and your budget allows, the team leader will visit your office, tour your facilities and spend a day or two out in the field with one of your sales reps.

In addition, we'll review all of your existing advertising, marketing and PR materials along with your most recent "white mail," such as customer testimonials. If your organization prepares proposals as part of its sales process we'll want to see one of those as well. Plus, we’ll look over any customer satisfaction surveys and thumb through back issues of the major trade magazines serving your industry. And, we’ll surf the internet to check up on the competition.  

Step Two – As we gain an understanding of your company, your product(s) and/or service(s), and your current positioning in the marketplace...potential tactics, strategies, and messaging ideas will come to mind. We'll make note of them -- and, as we become more and more familiar with your business this increased familiarity will generate additional questions. When we’re done we’ll have a list of specific and detailed questions to go over with you in our interview.

Step Three – Your Positive Response team leader will email you the interview questions and arrange a time for your tape-recorded interview.  During the interview the two of you will "dig beneath the surface" and get down to the "nitty-gritty"…as to why people buy or should buy what you offer. Among the many areas of questioning, you’ll be asked to -

• Assess your company’s strengths and weaknesses
• Articulate what differentiates your company from the competition
• Identify the opportunities you see in the marketplace
• Point out the threats to your success
• Describe the common objections people give for not buying, and how you overcome these objections
• Give us your thoughts on what makes for an "A" lead, a "B" lead, and a "C" lead. 

Plus, we’ll have detailed questions about your products and services. 

In this free-wheeling interview your answers will trigger new questions and new information which will trigger new ideas. When the interview is over, with your permission we’ll have the audiotape transcribed. This document will serve as a reference tool and a source of inspiration for ideas, tactics, and strategies for improving your marketing, messaging and lead-generation results. (You’ll receive a copy of the transcript, which can serve as a valuable training tool.)

NOTE: We also recommend that we be allowed to conduct another, similar interview with one of your company’s top sales executives. In addition, we'll prepare a questionnaire to be e-mailed to numerous other salespeople soliciting their written feedback. Because getting your salesforce's perspective and input and incorporating some of their ideas into your programs will help ensure their “buy-in,” – and, make your programs more effective.

Step Four – We’ll get the customer’s point of view. Are the reasons you think they buy from you, the reasons they actually buy?  Depending on the size and scope of the project this may involve only a few informal interviews with some of your better customers. In other cases, you may want to undertake an in-depth research project involving enough interviews to achieve a valid statistical sample.

In addition to validating your beliefs or bringing new truths to light, third-party customer interviews can benefit you in other ways as well. For example, they can often elicit excellent customer testimonials. Plus, they can uncover new sales opportunities or potential customer defections.

Step Five – Your Positive Response team will review the printed transcript(s), highlighting key sections and making notes. The transcript(s), together with information gained from customer interviews and our other extensive activities…will give us a rock-solid foundation of knowledge.  From this foundation your skilled Positive Response team will achieve a unique understanding and insight that will enable us to find the magic in your product, your service, your company.

Then we will fully exploit this magic to make your Positive Response project an unqualified success.