Subjects - Business

Differentiation, niche marketing, and positioning. These and other related business buzzwords have no doubt crossed every business owner and marketing director's ears in recent years.

But what do these words really mean to you in your business? Usually they mean that a business will attempt to sell a product or service that is somehow different than the competition's to a certain, specific target market. In theory, this is a great i

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

dea. If you could just reach that one segment of the market with your great, new, innovative product...

Welcome to reality. If your company is innovative enough to develop a truly unique product or service that is earning you a profit, the following inevitably happens: competition springs up from nowhere to imitate your product or service, undersell your price, and steal your market share. It's immutable.

So as your next line of de

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

ense, you choose to position yourself as the quality leader within your field. Or as the low price leader. Or as the service king. You soon find yourself in a battle with four other companies - all claiming to have the largest selection, lowest prices, highest quality or best service.

A marketing free-for-all usually ensues. Each competitor tries in vain to shout with the loudest voice that his business is superior. Headlines get bi

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

ger, radio ads get more obnoxious, advertising agencies get richer. More significantly, customers begin to discount any claim made by any of the companies.

Is niche marketing the way to go then? Obviously, different is better than "me too." The question isn't whether or not to be different, but rather how to communicate those differences in a way that your customers will believe and embrace them. Your Real Opportunity for Innovation

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

Lies in the Marketing.

Here's What Marketing Really Is...

You need to realize three things about business to understand marketing. These three things are always true, regardless of what industry you're in:

1) All businesses do just one thing: They Woo Customers - Period.

2) All customers want just one thing: The Best Deal - Period.

3) Your marketing should do just one thing: Articulate Why You're The Best Deal - Period.

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

ou can build confidence if you articulate your advantage.

This is not a complicated thing. If you dispute any of the three points, please call me to discuss it at once. I don't want to be wrong about such simple stuff. But if this is such simple stuff...then why do most businesses have so much trouble executing a decent marketing plan? I say it's because, in general, we are lazy communicators.

See if this scenario sounds familiar.

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

hen you get home from work, your spouse asks you how your day was. What do you usually say? Fine, okay, I'm tired, great, it stunk. Do these words actually communicate anything? What about when you see someone you know at the store and you ask, "Whatcha doin'?" (as if you really care or can't tell by looking) and he answers, "Fine," which is actually the answer to the other question he was expecting, which is "How ya doin'?" We are a

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

society of lazy communicators...we are on communication autopilot. Don't think, just talk.

These communication habits spill over into marketing and advertising all the time. Show me 99% of all marketing material created and I'll show you a huge jumble of hyperbole, fluff, platitudes, and yawnably unbelievable, black hole nothing words. Words like cheapest, professionalism, service, quality, speedy, convenient, and best. These words

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

do absolutely nothing to communicate why you're the best deal. NOTHING. Claude Hopkins, the greatest advertising man in history, summed it up: "Platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck. They leave no impression whatever."

Consider an example. The city I live in has just over 150,000 people. The local yellow page directory lists a whopping 81 companies that repair air conditioners. Of those,

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

34 spend from $300 to $5,000 a month for space ads in addition to the regular category listing.

Some of the advertisers claim to be "the" experts. Most tell me in bullet points that they only charge one low rate, even if service is needed after hours or on weekends. Almost all of them tout that they fix all major brands. None of them, however, give me a compelling reason why I should call them instead of their competitors. The "uniq

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

e" claims of each company have become generic, unappealing, and meaningless to the prospect...who is just waiting to be sold.

Surprisingly, very few businesses really make more than a token attempt to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Once a company stakes out a position in the marketplace, the usual strategy is to foolishly proclaim to all potential customers, "Here we are, now give us all the business that you have be

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

n giving to our competition...for no justifiable, rational reason."

Fortunately, you can cash in on what your competitors are doing wrong. The most powerful tool you can use to stand head and shoulders above your competition is the Articulated Sales Argument (ASA). Your ASA is the singular, unique benefit that your customers can expect to receive when they favor your business instead of your competitor's - stated in specific, graphi

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

ally illustrated terms.

An air conditioning repair company I know of in Las Vegas harnessed the power of the ASA and tripled the size of its business in less than a year. Before developing and implementing an ASA, the company had been guilty of running "me too" advertising. Their yellow page ad (where 90% of their business came from) had the company name plastered across the top in huge letters. Bullet points let everyone know that

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

hey provided 24-hour service, they serviced most major brands, they had 22 years of experience, etc.

Because everyone else's ad said essentially the same thing and since their ad was relatively large, they were able to build a respectable business in spite of their "me too" approach. Each year, they were able to generate enough revenue to do the following:

1. Add a new truck or two to their fleet.

2. Keep their repairmen busy most

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

of the time.

3. Generate a small profit for the owners.

4. Continue to run the advertisement.

What more could small business owners ask for? A lot more! The first step in developing their ASA was to determine what customers wanted most from an air conditioning repair company. In the 8 month long Las Vegas summer even a couple of hours without an air conditioner is sheer misery. Customer surveys confirmed their notion - fast servi

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

e was to be the premise for their ASA.

But everyone else already claimed to have fast service. Some companies even put FAST SERVICE in big headlines at the top of their ads. It wasn't as if nobody else had ever figured out that being fast was important. The funny thing was that nobody else had ever figured out a way to say it in a way that would allow them to stand head and shoulders above the competition.

The next year they ran a

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

alf page ad as usual (no additional expense), but changed the wording to say, "Because we have 58 repairmen on call 24 hours a day to man our 27 service trucks, we can guarantee that your home or business will be cool within 2 hours of your call - or there's no charge for the repair." And that was just the headline!

The rest of the ad went on to explain that if the crews were too busy to fix the unit right then or if the repair woul

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

take longer than 2 hours, portable units would be brought in to cool the house at no extra charge until the repair was completed. Bottom line, the customer would be cool in a hurry - period.

The company put a lot of faith in their new ASA based on previous test results - they actually only had 17 repair trucks and about 40 technicians when they first placed the ad. They were counting on the ad to generate enough business to afford

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

hem the additional trucks and personnel. The number of calls the ad generated quadrupled in less than one month after the new book came out. More importantly, they were able to convert 50% of the calls into jobs - up from 38% before. Gross revenues soared and new trucks were bought to keep up with demand. The end of the year profit for the owners was higher than they thought they would ever see.

Their integration of the ASA "fast se

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

vice" was the key element in the company's turnaround. Obviously, other factors contributed as well, like the company's underlying dedication to fulfilling the "big promise" of fast service. But the point is a simple headline stating the ASA "fast service" increased their bottom line by over 400% with no additional advertising cost.

What's Your ASA?

The ASA really is the keystone of all your marketing. Everything else depends on it

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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What most aspiring entrepreneurs don't realize is that the skill set necessary to start a business isn't out of reach. It's simply a matter of finding the right tools and using them to your best advantage.

Almost every entrepreneur has a start-up financing horror story, how the banker giggled while reviewing the business plan. Because of experiences like these, entrepreneurs often assume that lenders and investors lack either money or good business sense to know a good deal when they see one.

No matter how one looks at Workplace Violence or denies its impact on businesses, employees, public image and production and performance, the bottom line is that it exists and is as harmful as the acts of a terrorist. The only difference is the long-term affect of workplace violence on people and the business. One can forget the act but never the impact.

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