Good meeting, wrong answers

I attended today the Dutch MPI chapter meeting during Marcom exhibition at Amsterdam RAI. Terri Breining and Antonio Ducceschi did an excellent double act extracting some very interesting discussion points from the latest FutureWatch study.

An interesting group discussion topic was 'What do you do different to keep customers in a recession'. The answers were things like 'Be more creative', 'Create alliances', 'Maintain relationships', 'Be more flexible on cancellation terms', etc. All of these, in my opinion, were the wrong answers. Then one table said 'Turn USPs into VCPs, Unique Selling Points into Value Creation Points' which is spot on.

Unfortunately they didn't elaborate on what they meant, but i think your VCPs could be as follows:

1. Explain exactly how the event will increase profit. It either has to create more net revenue from sales or reduce costs, those are the only two ways of making profit.

2. Explain exactly what the event will make the participants do (not just feel or think), the only way of increasing sales or reducing costs is through participant actions.

3. Explain how the event will make them do just that. Show that you know why they are not doing it already. Maybe they lack product information or don't have a good attitude to your company or brand. This is why you need the event and this is why the programme is designed the way it is.

4. Ask your budget owner if the story above makes sence and if he believes it will work. He will probably say yes, then you ask him for the money.

Elling