In a recent trip to San Francisco, I watched a local news report on the ABC station about how Silicon Valley is now focusing on “green technology.” They talked about how Silicon Valley hit hard times - the venture capital market shrunk by 37% last year and how the Governator and Federal Government is backing new programs to help these new “green” startups emerge and thrive.
Green is hot. Silicon Valley is poised for a comeback, right?
WRONG!
That story sounds to the Fearless Competitor (worked for Silicon Valley startups like Agile Software in the 1990′s) like the same “If we build it, they will come” mentality that’s plagued Silicon Valley for years. The mindset there is
“We just need a great product (software, social network, green technology)and customers will buy in droves.”
This approach was made famous in Field of Dreams, (photo) when Kevin Costner created a baseball diamond in a cornfield, but it as a business strategy, I’ve seen company after company do the same thing, but unlike the movie, Shoeless Joe Jackson (buyers) never magically show up.
Instead, businesses need to embrace new ideas and approaches in marketing and lead generation.
- They need to forget product features and gobbledygook words.
- They need to get a lot better at engaging and enticing prospective buyers using remarkable content.
- They need to learn to build trust and engage prospective buyers.
- They need to develop buyer personas to attract interest.
- They need to gently nurture prospective buyers and earn their trust.
- They need to break down walls between departments - sales/marketing/channels/advertising need to work closely together.
- They need to get their ears on (by implementing a social media platform (like Radian6 or Visible Technologies), listen to online conversations and score behavior, so they’ll know what’s on the minds of their potential buyers.
Then and only then will Silicon Valley make a comeback.
What do you think? Can “green technology” save Silicon Valley, or is a fundamental change needed? We love comments!
What do you think? We love comments and people who share.
Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” Check out the online show every Friday at 11am ET, “Laugh and Learn with the Fearless Competitor.” Find New Customers is one of few lead generation companies in New York.
Find New Customers helps companies like yours (with 50 to 5,000 employees and complex products) implement lead generation programs to improve the way you find and acquire high quality sales leads using best practices in online lead generation. Quality leads matter. In fact, a recent study found that sales teams with fewer, high quality sales leads closed more than sales teams with more leads of dubious quality.
If you wish to do sales lead generation online, contact the B2B lead generation experts at Find New Customers using the form below.
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