1. Marketing Skill

2. Agenda
Introduction
Mental models
Communication and behavioural styles

3. INTRODUCTION -“Marketing”
The 4 P’s of Internet Marketing
• The Product : An idea, a new process, advice, insights
• The Price : The effort, the time, consequence to self,
training for new processes
• The Price : Launch your idea to the whole agency?
Test market? To those who decide or those who will do?
• The promotion : In a document? Verbally, Presentation?
Saying what?
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4. INTRODUCTION -“Value”
Value = Benefits – Coast - Risks
Will it make :
• My life easier
• Me more successful
• Increase my influence
• Reduce my stress
• Produce measurable results
Is it worth:
• The time it will take
• The effort of learning new things
• The training time
• The risks of failure
• The career risk
• The opportunity cost
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5. INTRODUCTION -“Customers”
Who are the internal customers?
• Who are the stakeholders in the success of for your project?
• Who will make the go/no go decisions?
• Who will be affected by the outcome of the decisions?
• Are there segmentations within your internal market?
e.g.???
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6. INTRODUCTION -“Segmentation”
The role & importance of segmentation
• How would you identify each of the following?
- controllers
- promoters
- analyzers
- supporters
• Why is their identification important?
• How would your messaging differ to each?
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7. INTRODUCTION - Addressing our own”
Definition of Mental Models : Our deeply held beliefs and assumptions about how the would works
Characteristics:
• Critical to our effectiveness
• Filter what we see and hear
• Often treat them as “obvious truth”
• Flawed and can get is into trouble
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8. MENTAL MODELS -Internal customer expectations
• Knowing your customer’s mental models helps
you talk their language and “ get inside their heads”
-what makes them tick
• It also helps you understand their preconceptions of you
• It also helps you understand their expectations-
and how you can meet and exceed them
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9. MENTAL MODELS -Laddering to Reveal Mental Models
• Laddering is an exercise in revealing the underlying
motives and beliefs of behaviour
• Briefly, it involves asking “why” questions. For
example, “When you do X, what does it mean for
You? What benefits do you et from doing X?”
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10. MENTAL MODELS -The Ladder of Interface
The Ladder of Inference illustrates an automatic, unconscious process. This process occurs in our thoughts, as we reach conclusions when we interact with others.
Within organizations we rarely investigate the ladder of inference for others. And yet it reveals useful information for more productive conversations.
We also need to examine our
own “Ladders of Inference ”
Adopt Beliefs
Take Action
Draw Conclusions
Make Assumptions
Add Meaning
Results
Select Data
Observable Data and Experience
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11. MENTAL MODELS -We jump up the Ladder
• We select what treat as important
• We add meanings and draw conclusions
• Our thinking is effortless, fast and works
routinely
• Our conclusions appear obvious and we
rarely think about the steps
• Our beliefs, assumptions and values
influence what data we select, what
meanings we add and what conclusions
we draw
Adopt Beliefs
Draw Conclusions
Make Assumptions
Add Meaning
Select Data
Observable Data and Experience
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12. MENTAL MODELS - Our skill
Our skill is essential – and gets us into trouble
• We jump up the ladder without stopping to reflect
• People with the same data often reach different conclusions.
Yet when they see their conclusions as obvious, they do not see a
need to illustrate the steps.
• People who disagree often hurl conclusions at each other from the tops
of their respective ladders
• Our thinking is vulnerable to error. We allow error to persist by not
publicly testing
• This has an important impact on the quality of the thinking and the
decisions we make as a team and as an organization
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13. MENTAL MODELS - Revealing Mental Models
Revealing Mental Models : The advocacy / Inquiry Matrix
• In marketing to external customers, we balance the needs of the
external customer with our own internal needs
- the same balance occurs with internal marketing
- the balance of being responsive to customers as well as being persuasive
• Advocacy / Inquiry Matrix
- Tool for balancing our level of advocacy vs. inquiry in our conversations
- Remember : Understanding the thinking that drives behaviour is one way to help change behaviour
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14. ADVOCACY / INQUIRY
The Art of Productive Conversations :Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry
Advocacy
• Speaking about what you believe
• Communicating your point of view
• Stating clearly and confidently what you think
Inquiry
• Looking into what you do not understand
• Trying to discover what others see and understand
• Trying to understand the other’s point of view and beliefs-that may differ from your own
• Being sufficiently “open” to admit you are wrong
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15. Productive Conversation
ADVOCACY / INQUIRY
Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry : The Positive and Negatives
High
Explaining
Dictating
Productive Conversation
Mutual Learning
ADVOCACY
Observing
Withdrawing
Interviewing
Interrogating
Low
INQUIRY
High
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16. ADVOCACY / INQUIRY Protocols for improved advocacy What to do
What to say
State your assumptions, and describe the data that led to them
“Here’s what I think, and
here’s how I get there.”
Explain your assumptions
“I assumed that”
“I came to the conclusion
because..”
Make your reasoning explicit
“To get a clear picture of
what I mean, imagine..”
Give examples
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17. ADVOCACY / INQUIRY What to say What to do
Protocols for improved inquiry
What to do
What to say
Walk other though their ladders of inference
“What leads you to the conclude that ?
“What data do you have for that ?”
“What causes you to say that ?”
“Help me understand your thinking here ?”
rather than “what do you mean” ?
Use non-aggressive
language
“What would be the significance of that ?”
“How does this relate to the other concerns?”
Draw out their reasoning
Explain your reasons for
inquiring
“To get a clear picture of
what I mean, imagine..”
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