Irresistable offers
I attended Goldratt Consulting's Viable Vision Offer Event last week in anticipation of working with another consulting group as an "application expert" in the Critical Chain Project Management (and possible more, pending additional training). This was my first opportunity to see Eli Goldratt himself, and he certainly knows how to sell his materials. He is someone who bakes his methodologies into everything he does, and the Viable Vision is another example of this. He steps you through the thought process with prodding questions and straightforward logic. In the end, he leaves you with the belief that it truly is possible to turn your company's current sales into operating profits within four years.
Theory of Constraints still applies, and now Goldratt argues that the constraint is the market, rather than anything internal. And this is where most companies get stuck. They are convinced that they have no control over the market or that they've tried everything. Goldratt suggests that you have to make an irresistible offer to your market: an offer they cannot refuse because it will benefit them far more than it costs them.
The Viable Vision is not simply the goal of changing current sales to operating profits. It includes this irresistible offer up front and the basic path of how to get there. The work behind this is putting your company in a position where it can make such an offer to the market. Goldratt Consulting and their associated consultants work with you to refocus the organization on subordinating to the constraint that is the market. It's a four year plan, not only because some of the changes take time but also to ensure that the Process of On Going Improvement (POOGI) continues for the entire period and that your company is left with the skills and abilities to continue improving.
Personally, the result of this seminar is that I am seeing the world in terms of constraints once again, just as I did when heavily invested in Critical Chain Project Management at Pharmacia, or as happens after reading The Goal or other Goldratt books. This means I get to work more closely with clients to see where knowledge supports or hinders their constraint.
I also realize that I have several friends at manufacturing companies who would have been quite interested in the Viable Vision Offer event. His next US-based workshop will be in Dallas in October. He will be presenting this offer in Europe next week (Amsterdam and Kiev) and China in May.
7 Comment(s)
said:
Interesting challenge. Goldratt has been focusing his offer on manufacturing (hard good) companies, because the application of his main methodologies apply directly in these environments: drum-buffer-rope, pull distribution, Critical Chain Project Management, dollar-days measures, etc. That said, he used examples of a hospital in the UK, and a school Israel.
To apply to MeshForum, one would need to understand what an irresistible offer looks like to the attendees. Do we tell them they can come for free and pay if they are satisfied? Do we guarantee a personal discussion with at least one of the thought leaders at the conference? Do we offer follow-up information, consulting or other materials in the MeshForum vein?
What is the measurable "goal unit" for a conference anyway? Is it simply the number of paying bodies in the room?
Interesting that Eli is back on the road again. This must mean that he has broken his own constraint. Last October they had so much work that they had turned off the marketing effort through a lack of TOC experts to fulfill the opportunities. The challenge was to pump enough people through the new Goldratt schools to be able to increase capacity. I guess that must have happened by now.
interesting question about MeshForum.
i imagine the irresistable offer sounds a lot like the offer we make when we open space: all fo the issues of any importance related to (networks, in this case) will be identified and raised for discussion, addressed fully to the extent that the people in the room are able, documented so that conversations can be revisited and extended beyond the conference, prioritized by the whole group if necessary and appropriate, and immediate next steps identified in all highest priority issues.
for Mesh, the offer might be that you will be able to work on any issue of real importance to you with experts in a wide range of network life. it seems the cost is separate from the offer itself, and yes, perhaps set afterward. isn't the whole shift about identifying value and then setting the price? ...and also setting what else one might be able to contribute to the actions that want to happen afterward.
more generally, i've just been talking with someone here in london about the goldratt approach, jack... and i'm very much looking forward to talking with you about offers, constraints and the rest while i'm there in chicago. as my comments here may show, i'm brand new to this language, but i'm also quite intrigued.
thanks!
For Mesh the "goal unit" is contributing attendees - contributing firstly in the sense that they add to the conversation at MeshForum.
My assumption (hopefully to be proven) is that if we get a great group of people together, the finances will work out - though we do have to watch and monitor both in and out flows of money.
Michael's suggestion about perhaps cost being separate from the offer is an interesting one - next year I think we should use a more flexible and adaptable ticketing service, one which would allow us to get more creative with our pricing models, do group ticketing pricing.
If people stay for the full MeshForum, we should be able to guarentee that they will have a chance to explore deeply how networks relate to their organizations, their personal and professional challenges. And through the range of speakers, panels, and opportunities - even before the MeshAction open space - to participate and talk with others attending MeshForum, everyone's perspective will be heard.
And further, if attendees are willing to participate, as they will in the open space, they will find that their contributions are rewarded (often by people helping them similarly in thinking about their challenges, and through the process of helping others often seeing their own problems in new ways).
So, how do we boil this down into an irrestible offer?
And then how do we shout or whisper it to 100's of people (who can't "resist" the offer...)
Shannon
the challenge of an irresistable conference offer, i think, is that the reasons for attending are necessarily so diverse... approaching uniqueness. the offer needs to be made in so many almost unique languages, i.e. if you know what my business is, you can frame the conference offer in terms of value to my business. also, a first conference has no history or relationship with existing customers, so little shared language and shared experience on which to build. it's always easier to resist strangers.
that said, is there anything that *every* potential conference attendee would want? it's not just about price, either. the conference price is only part of the total cost of attending and for many the value of the time will be greater than the financial outlay.
coming from a different angle, i think about all the folks who've already said they are coming. why did they say they'd come. many are speakers, but it's not just the chance to stand at a podium or sit on a panel that is attractive. so what *is* it? i consider my own interest. why come? what was irresistable about the offer? relationships with friends, old and new. personal invitation. and the opportunity to *practice* something with those friends.
assuming the crowd that we want really does share the word *network*, then what would be irresistable to them? the chance to join, create, develop, support, learn, work, be supported, etc. over time by a state-of-the-art network and the chance to learn how do replicate it in the other places they already are working. so what is state of art? what is highest performance in network?
Hey ,
I am a huge goldratt fan too hoping to work with him someday !!
Jack, how can we make an "irresistable offer" for attendees of MeshForum?
Shannon