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ci-ce-ro-ne: a guide who conducts sightseers (or SITEseers)

Pronunciation: si-se-rO-nE / Etymology: Italian, 1726

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IN THIS EDITION

* Market Commentary: Andrew Eklund, CEO on "From A Potentially Fiery Wreck to Enlightenment in One Visit to the Car Dealership"
* Profiled! Kraig Larson, Founding Partner
* The Buzz: Online ad spend balloons 30%, Conversion funnels are dead, Execs debate online budget gap, Ciceron jumps in rank to #8
* Check out Ciceron's exciting Web projects in WORK BRIEFS: Client Accolades for Surdyks.com, Public Radio International, and Minneapolis.org

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MARKET COMMENTARY

From A Potentially Fiery Wreck to Enlightenment in One Visit to the Car Dealership

I'm writing this piece from my car dealership. Last week I received a notice that my car has been recalled due to a faulty fuel pump. No big deal. Just that I'm driving in a potentially EXPLOSIVE DEATH MACHINE!

While waiting for my car to be rendered safe again, I'm sitting here in the showroom along pit row for the sales team. I'm listening to each of their phone calls. (nosy damn market research guy that I am.) In half the calls, I hear some reference to the Internet. In fact the new guy -- a recent Chicago transplant -- just said, "So did the Internet tell you about our new financing options" as though Ms. Internet just sat down next to Ms. Prospect, poured her a nice cup of Starbucks, and negotiated her new sale.

Oh, wait a second! Ms. Prospect just hung up on Chicago Sales Guy! (No lie. It just happened.)

It's taking everything in my power not to jump out of my chair and yell, "Hey, Chicago-boy! You've just been punked by Ms. Self-Informed-Due-Diligence-Prospect. And you didn't know it because you were taught how to sell cars old school. You thought you were in the business of selling cars. You're not. To that self-informed prospect, you're in the business of negotiating a pre-sold deal. You're in the business of providing Ms. Prospect a few other options that may fit with her lifestyle. You're in the business of showing her how easy it is to bring your car in for routine maintenance or getting into a new car once her lease has expired.

Chicago-boy, you needed to ask Ms. Prospect a lot of questions about her lifestyle and what she values. You needed to reinforce that the car she selected online is the perfect car for her -- and I bet she just can't wait to come in and take a look at her new car."

But Chicago-boy didn't do any of those things. And I'm not his boss, so I'm going to blog about him. Sucker!

In Freakanomics, author Steven Levitt would call this situation, where the Internet flip flopped the power position, a mistaken assumption of "asymmetrical information." In the case of Chicago-boy, he made the incorrect assumption that only he had access to some very special information about the Ms. Prospect's new car that she did not. He assumed that at some point he'd have the opportunity to throw out that ethereal zinger that closes the deal. Here are the facts of the transaction: Ms. Prospect most likely utilized better information than the sales guy because she tapped into an entire realm of persuasive content that was non-branded, non-salesy, and thoroughly authentic. The content that persuaded Ms. Prospect to pick up the phone was most likely generated by a consumer like her in the form of a product review, evangelist blog, or online message board.

Chicago-boy and countless other sales people like him failed to recognize this reality. In fact, sales people are too often detatched from the reality of their prospects' buying decisions. In this case, Ms. Prospect had already envisioned herself driving that car to her office, to her cabin hauling weekend supplies, to her child's baseball game. So when it was time to do the deal, Chicago-boy didn't listen, didn't ask questions, or interpret what his role was.

This scene plays itself out every single business day. And not only in consumer goods like cars. In fact -- and I'm researching this right now -- it may be that in most business-to-business sales processes, where decision timeframes are longer and more expensive, B2B consumers are more deeply engaged than B2C consumers with non-branded yet highly persuasive consumer generated content. Recent research studies have indicated that the higher the pricetag, the more online research is conducted during the consideration phase of a purchase. If this proves true -- which I expect -- then if your sales people aren't talking less and listening more for these subtle yet incredibly powerful signals, there's a better than likely chance that they might be hearing a dialtone rather than enthusiastic buyer on the other end of the line.

Until next month,

Andrew Eklund
CEO

What's the impact of consumer generated content on your sales processes? Would you like to know and measure what's said online about your organization, its product and services? That's why we're here. Let us know if you or someone you know would like to talk about next steps.

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CICERON TEAM MEMBER PROFILE - Kraig Larson

Meet Kraig Larson, Founding Partner

Having just returned from a three week excursion to Australia, Kraig finds himself frequently surfing down the stairway banister. While there, he learned first hand -- and with much enthusiasm -- that Fosters is in fact Australian for beer.

Back at work, Kraig has been busily rethinking, rearchitecting, and redesigning several high profile web sites. Stay tuned!

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THE BUZZ

Online Ad Spend Balloons 30%
Even so, it only accounts for 5% of all advertising spending, despite the fact that the Internet is the medium of choice for most consumers.

Conversion Funnels are Dead
This ClickZ author portends that the old conversion funnels have moved to a more "spoke and wheel" look. Good, compelling read.

Execs Debate Online Budget Gap
More on that underfunding of the Internet channel. In this article, they refer to a figure that consumers spend 18% of their time online, while the channel only gets a single-digit budget. Remember, when you look even more closely at the consumer, of the time we spend with media, nearly half of that time is spent online. This article presents what executives are pondering at the moment.

Ciceron Jumps in Rank to #8 on Twin Cities Business Monthly's "Big Book" of Rankings, Rosters & Resources for largest web agencies.

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WORK BRIEFS

Client Accolades

Surdyks.com, designed and launched by Ciceron last year, is selected by the Wall Street Journal as one of the country's top online wine stores.

Public Radio International wins The Communicator Award's 2006 Print Award of Excellence. Ciceron provided online marketing content for the Digital Public Radio newspaper.

Ciceron client, Minneapolis.org, the official web site for the Greater Minneapolis Convention and Visitors Association (GMCVA), has been ranked as the eighth best CVB web site in the North America by Meetings & Convention magazine.