If you have watched the movie of the Trapp Family Singers, The Sound of Music, you have seen the Hollywood version of the Trapp family and their escape from the Nazi Regime. It shouldn't surprise you that not a lot of the movie or the musical is true. The family did escape and they eventually made their way to the U.S. Destitute and in despair, they were held on Ellis Island and treated very unkindly by officials there. Many times they gave up hope of ever being allowed to officially enter the U.S.

Finally, they were allowed into New York and they searched for an agent to book their concerts. This family was undoubtedly talented, their performances technically flawless, but with each interview or concert they just couldn't find a way to capture the American audiences as they had done in their native Austria. Their concerts were long, solemn, proper and some of their individual selections were forty-five minutes long. Finally, an agent agreed to represent them after Maria Augusta Trapp, the tireless and shrewd matriarch, demanded that he tell her why he wasn't interested in giving them a chance. His reply was that they had no "sex appeal." Not having a good grasp of the English language, she did not understand that what he meant was that American audiences expected to be entertained, not made to feel that they were attending a solemn service. And then one day it happened...I'll let Maria tell you...

I stepped forward and said: "We shall sing as an encore now one of the mountain calls from the Austrian Alps, known a 'Jodler', and we started. In yodeling one has to take a deep breath and then hold out for long phases at a time. We were just in the middle of it when, oh horror! a fly started circling around my face. I watched it, cross-eyed, and got panicky. I knew very soon I would have to tak a deep breath, and what if...A simple move of my hand would have chased it away, but that's it. To move your hand leisurely on the stage whenever you want, and wherever you want, it is necessary not to be rigid with self-consciousness and sweating with stage fright. We took our deep breath, and it happened. In went the fly and, of course, down my "Sunday throat," where it got stuck. I felt like choking. Again, a good cough would have helped. But to cough the right way on the stage is much, much harder than to sing the right way. I outdid myself in not coughing, but I couldn't help turning purple. I happened to have the leading part in this "Jodler", the melody; but that mountain call had to be finished without it, because I was struggling between life and death. My brave children tried not to pay any attention to their choking mother, and when they were finished, I was, to--with the fly. I felt terribly sorry for everyone, but mostly for the audience, who had been cheated of their encore. I forgot that I was on the stage and embarrassed and facing people. I only felt I had to apologize and make up.

Out of this urge I stepped forward and said perfectly naturally in everyday language:

"What never happened before, has happened now: I swallowed a fly."

I was perfectly amazed at the success of this simple statement. The people laughed and laughed and laughed. When thy had recovered, I informed them that we wanted to sing another encore to make up for the spoiled on: this time and Austrian folk song and I explained: "It describes how a young hunger climbs up in the rocks for hours, look for, and finally finding and shooting, a..." I was to say "Gemse", the only word for which I knew was "chamois"; but somehow I got mixed up and said "chemise."

I was perfectly dumbfounded. Was that such a joke in America? I couldn't see anything so funny, and looked questioningly at my children who--can you believe it?--were shaking with laughter, too. When finally, the worst had passed, I started. For a whole line I was alone; the others were to fall in later and while I was singing by myself in full, loud yodel tones, Rupert, the mischievous one, whispered to me what I had said. To remain serious now and go on signing was almost harder than not to choke with the fly. I could have skinned Rupert in front of the whole audience. But--the incredible had happened. The missing link was found; the audience and we had been for some precious minutes one whole. The spell was broken. Now we had found the bridge. Very soon we could say truthfully to our audiences; "We don't consider this a concert; but we rather feel as if we had taken out one wall of our big living room at home, and you are all our guests at a musical party."

Quite informally we explained interesting details of the numbers to be performed, and the people assured us afterwards that they had quite forgotten that they were in a concert hall. "You have made us feel so much at home." Three cheers for the fly!

(from the Story of the Trapp Family Singers, by Maria Augusta Trapp)

There are several marketing parallels that can we draw from Maria's fly epiphany. For the moment, we are going to focus on the main one and that is, you have to connect with your market segments and you have to connect frequently. It wasn't until the Trapp Family Singers connected with their audiences that they began to see success. They found an interesting way of explaining the details of their selections without boring technical rhetoric and musical jargon. They found a way to train the audience what was important to listen and look for within the performance, perhaps things the audiece never knew or noticed before. The audience in turn felt a bond with the Trapp Family Singers. It really did feel like they had been transported into the Trapp family living room.

Initially, the Trapp Family Singers were under the same misconception that many of us make in our service businesses. Their technical ability was superb. Like the Trapps, we often focus our marketing collateral on our technical expertise. Why? Often because it is easier than focusing on market segments. First though, let's talk a little about what clients think about technical expertise.

When a client hires us, technical expertise is assumed. We've seen this happen a lot in our industry with the proliferation of cheap design services. Unfortunately, people are assuming that if someone calls themselves a "professional" this or that and this person possesses the right tools, that person is a professional and is technically capable. That is, until it is proven to the client otherwise when he or she is having a bad experience or is not getting his or her desired level of responsiveness from the company he or she has hired. Unfortunately, a bad experience can make it harder for a client to be trusting when he or she must contract for services in the future and I am sure many of us have had to weather a client's bad experience baggage.

Again, technical capability isn't the most important factor when hiring a business for its services. A recent study within service industries was conducted. The study included both clients and service providers. Each group was asked to weigh technical value and service value. A most interesting difference was illustrated in the study.

Can you see what this says? It says that clients weigh service value more than technical value, but the service providers, us, operate under the misconception that more value is placed on technical capability. That would certainly explain why our marketing materials are so experience-oriented. Our portfolios, our websites, and our other marketing collateral, discuss in great detail our experience. It is by far easier to create collateral this way because it lends itself to the shotgun approach to marketing. We can send the information to everybody without having to focus on those we serve and those we wish to serve. These materials demonstrate that we have the technical capability to do certain types of work. We expect the potential client to be able to build a bridge between this information and the services they need, walk over it and hire us. Unfortunately, clients have to be lead. We must construct the bridge and walk over to get them. Realizing that the client values service capability more, helps us in finding ways to speak to our market segments. The value that clients place on service over technical capability has been demonstrated over and over as clients hire firms that are responsive more than they hire firms which tout their technical capability but have the reputation of being unresponsive.

Unlike the shotgun approach, process marketing, the focus of this blog, utilizes the law of probability--the probability that you are going to be in front of the client when the client is ready to contract services. The key to process marketing is that you select the market segments that you want to serve. If you cannot or will not figure out what market segments you serve or want to serve, then the rest of the process will not work.

There is opportunity for us then is to increase service value and consistently communicate with our market segments. If done correctly and consistently, you will no longer spend a great deal of time worrying about companies that lowball the price of services. You will not worry because you are consistently connecting with your market segments.

How many of us have marketing materials which discuss how we've saved a client money? Or kept them within budget and schedule? Or even discusses how a piece we created significantly drove their product and revenue? If we change the focus of our marketing collateral from ourselves and our capabilities to what problems we have solved for our clients or which of their headaches we have taken away, we will see better results from our marketing efforts. Discussing service value fits perfectly within a process marketing program. Through process marketing efforts, you will be helping your clients see the extra service value you bring to them. Your business will become client-centered and you will find that your marketing efforts are easier, your planning and forecasting more accurate, and you will find that you have to do a lot less research about what services are "hot" because you will automatically be able to adapt with your clients' needs.

As Maria discovered, you have to make a connection and maintain it with your market segments. Since 1939, The Trapp Family Singers have continued to make these connections and it doesn't appear that they will stop anytime soon.

Get started! You must identify the market segments that you serve and the market segments that you wish to serve in the future. Deciding on target markets and services will directly affect what marketing efforts must be undertaken to achieve your desired results. If you are planning upon service for a new target market, your efforts will be quite different than marketing to existing market segments. Hopefully, you have your client data in a format which is easy to access and use. Make your list; divide your clients and future clients into the market segments you want to serve.

Three cheers for the fly!

Reminder:

Market segmentation is the process of grouping a market into smaller subgroups. This is not something that is arbitrarily imposed on society: it is derived from the recognition that the total market is often made up of submarkets (called segments). These segments are homogeneous within (i.e. people in the segment are similar to each other in their attitudes about certain variables). Because of this intra-group similarity, they are likely to respond somewhat similarly to a given marketing strategy. That is, they are likely to have similar feelings about a marketing mix comprised of a given product or service, sold at a given price, distributed in a certain way, and promoted in a certain way.

© Copyright 2005 Lisa Duty