Electric Vehicle Chargers in Apartments – Practical Guidance

Here were the agenda points for the meeting that took place via Zoom on Tuesday 21st March 2023.

Mr. Gerry Cash of EasyGo, an SEAI authorised EV charging point operator, presented the issues, cost models, and other information you needed to know.  Gerry presented insightful guidance to the Network in person in 2019.

At this online meeting, we learned about the practicalities and costs of installing EV charging infrastructure in your estate.

1- Gerry Cash’s presentation

Everywhere there is a car park space, they can install a charger point/station. Download the app to get the charger points/stations throughout the country, as seen in the below screenshot.

The support funding options are as follows:

• 60 % through your management company
• 70 % through your Owner’s Management Company (OMC)
• 80 % through a government scheme (whether local or national organisation).

You’ll have to take the payments for the electricity to fill the car. You must monetise this, especially if you let other electric car users use your charging point.

The running costs include call centres, and SIM cards. There are costs associated with running and maintaining the unit to work safely.

For new properties, there is no support whatsoever from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

EasyGo is looking into getting a long-term agreement of 15–20 years, making chargers available and selling electricity throughout the country. The cost of electricity in apartment development car park spaces will be lower than the ones at public charging points. The ultimate goal is to get as many charging points as possible.

2- Answers to questions raised by participants and Multi-Unit Developments (MUD)

How to operate in allocated car park spaces?

There will be a 25 % extra charge of the actual price to maintain the equipment. People will have to show interest to get a station installed. SEAI will work as a central load point in unit developments.

There can be different loading points at different times of the day. Typically, a charge of an electric car must be done once or twice a week. Once the car is fully charged, you’ll get a notification to plug it out. If you don’t plug out, you’ll be charged extra for overuse of the facility.

Some properties may need to be upgraded if the air grid is stressed. But an air grid can be activated on demand.

How will the cost be allocated to the user?

Every individual user will have to register as a user with the EasyGo app and pay the meter directly to EasyGo. The OMC will be taken out of the equation altogether. Everything will go through the app, the payments, and so on. The one app will allow you to charge in your development block or on the go to wherever you are going. It’s a one-stop shop. You will be charged for what you used. There are two different payment options: pay as you go per charge, or pre-pay and have an amount of credit on the account.

Who owns the charger, and what is the maximum grant available?

It’s EasyGo. EasyGo will apply in the OMC’s name. In order to get the grant, the OMC will have to show proof they paid for it. Then, SEAI will refund a percentage back, and the same for EasyGo.

The grant scheme will depend on the number of apartments, the limit is set to 100 000 Euros.

Common meters are classed as commercial meters. Can this be reassigned to residential meters? What rate would apply?

SEAI will support commercial meters and commercial rates will apply, there is no other way how to go about it. EasyGo needs to go with what SEAI provides them with. Nonetheless, it costs a certain percentage lower than a public meter.

Furthermore, there must be an operator to manage an EV Charger powered to a single apartment. You could charge people for using it through an operator. However, note that an apartment is not designed to plug two loading points.

If the OMC gives authorisation to users/apartment owners for individual charging point installation and usage, what are the consequences in case of accident/injury to an owner?

You are not going to get a charger per space. To run a cable to a fuse box in the apartment is not going to work, it would be impractical and won’t be supported by SEAI. Cables are at high risk of injury, especially if you are a little far away from a loading point. OMC should notify the insurance that such and such apartment has that connection. The insurance company will assess the risks before allocating any individual chargers for apartment.

OMC will be reliable to repair damaged common areas. If it’s only the car, it won’t be the management agency/OMC’s responsibility, but the car owner’s.

Are there any contractual obligations such as exit costs?

With EasyGo, there is an exit/break cost if cut before the 3 years of a contract. If the OMC decides to not renew after 5 years, they will have to pay termination fees as the contract hasn’t ended. After 15 years of the contract, it will be owned by the OMC, and they will be able to choose another provider.

What is the process of changing suppliers?

You’ll need to meet with the city council. However, the EasyGo team is open to talking with people. You can go to your local authority if the developer no longer exists.

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Circus Europa, May 2022 show: Incredible feats in Hamburg, Germany!

Incredible feats at Circus Europa, May 2022 show in Hamburg, Germany! But note that I have filmed everything that was on the programme.

Note that the mentioned programme wasn’t exactly what I saw. There may have been a rota around artists and types of performances displayed. Nonetheless, I truly enjoyed it, and so did the families with their children! Circus Europa is suitable for all age groups.

Now, let me share with you the acts I watch. For some acts, I only have made video snippets.

This first snippet video from the act by Ivan Radev, the juggler from Bulgaria:

Juggling is one of the classics of the circus, but this number will captivate you from the very first second. Look forward to flying footballs and juggling with balances of the new kind.

Then, we moved to an aerial act with this full thick red rope act:

Followed by this snippet video of the hand-balancing act by Bryan from Guatemala that you can find under the usernames  @bryanvulcan_fitness on Instagram and @bryanvulcan on Tiktok:

Then came this full silk duet act by Daria and Olga from Russia:

Last, but not least, came this full flying pole act by Bryan from Guatemala, the same person who did the hand-balancing act:

This is a whole new kind of artistry: aerial acrobatics paired with the classic pole.

And the final full act I filmed was the wheel of death act by two Colombians that you can find on Instagram under the username @theflyersvalencia. They are also on Facebook.

These two daring Colombians use an 8-meter-long wheel, on which they jump rope and do somersaults on the outside of the rotating wheel. Thrills are guaranteed here!

There were  also other shows like:

• a quick dress change act with Duo Free Life from Ukraine, which you can find under the @duofreelife username on Instagram:

• a clown act with Tony Alexis
• and domestic animal acts with ponies, horses, dogs, and camels trained by Sandro Frank.

Stellwerk Hamburg German Hip Hop 10 years’ birthday party!

I filmed a few of the acts at the Stellwerk Hamburg German Hip Hop 10 years’ birthday party. But let me give you a bit of background about what Stellwerk Hamburg is and what was the night about.

In 2012, Stellwerk Hamburg began going through a deep-rooted transition from a jazz club to a subcultural center. Hip hop organisers have become like creative artists. Nevertheless, they never forgot their roots and have seen many beautiful concerts with U.S. rap acts, as well as with bands based here in their country. Corona has cashed in on their birthday party, but they still want to get something done in this post-Covid era!

Opening act DJ Play Dead at the Stellwerk Hamburg:

DJ Play Dead is a fixture in Hamburg’s turntable scene. The finest and rarest pieces of vinyl adorn his collection, and he is not too bad at scratching either. As part of the No Tv Raps Radio Show, you can listen to him frequently every first or third Friday of the month from 5-7 pm on FSK Radio.

I have also filmed the following acts at the Stellwerk Hamburg:

Aphroe (R.A.G./RAID) at the Stellwerk Hamburg:

“Aphroe is one of the key figures of the German hip-hop scene. Beginning his modest–but–influential career in the early 90s, when hip-hop jam culture was a big thing in Germany and all over Europe, Aphroe and his partner DJ Wiz (Beat Sampraz) formed the duo RAID.
In the mid-90s, RAID joined forces with fellow crew Filo Joes to form RAG – whose influence can still be felt today. “

One could compress it hastily and leave it there, but it would not be failing to understand its creative breadth. For the fans, the songs like “Silent Post”, Aphroe’s feature in the track “Zeitreise” (Time Travel) on the MC Rene release, or ‘Stratego’ under the “Unter Tage” LP, are Milestones in the History of German Rap.

In recent years there has also been a documentary release about “We almost lost Bochum” telling the history of R.A.G. and Aphroe’s new EP “Akribie”. The latter got very little visibility and was very little showcased on stage due to this annoying Covid virus!

You can follow him on Facebook if you would like to stay updated with his work!

Phaeb & DJ Free-kee:

Almost three years after the painful loss of band partner and friend dude26, the first solo LP of Phaeb is released with phonography. The pictures are exposed. Their memories emerge from the darkroom and get written. The album breathes a gentle melancholy in which the feeling of the Saudade of Portuguese Fado is combined with the wanderlust of early Afro-Futuristic trends.

Phaeb’s voice has depth and structure, creates closeness, and draws the listeners into a great story that spans the entire album length. The beats from the multi-instrumentalist and ‘Daily Concept’ label colleague IAMPAUL are the perfect musical framing for Phaebs’ associative visual language.

Nostalgic, timeless, grown-up – the phonography has been published on 18.12.2020 via ‘Daily Concept’.

Sherlock F:

Only in his early 30s and has already been infected by a hip hop bug for 20 years. He delivers a conscious rap on sample-based beats – no reinvented wheel, but it still reaches its goal.

In the meantime, Sherlock F., who can be found at any local freestyle sessions, also plans small explorations into garage grime realms and still plays for 3 days with a classical ensemble at Stellwerk Hamburg.

 

During the sherLockdown, there was no creative break, but new ways were explored. In his project “Beats, Rhymes and History” he now raps his way through streets and museums as a postcolonial cultural mediator. With his DJ Chris Cutwell from Club27, they have played for the last 2 years mainly open-air and at galas and both are happy to feel the sweat dripping from the ceiling again.

 

 

 

What is the Creator Economy, and what are its benefits?

Creator economy refers to the economy in which the audience funds directly content creators/freelancers. Content creators can be musicians, writers, graphic designers, online course providers, and video creators… By following this strategy, they are removing the old middlemen like record labels, TVs, Newspapers, and publishers from in between.

This type of economy has surged thanks to the advent of the Internet. It has provided creators with the ability to promote themselves directly online and reduce promotional costs by foregoing intermediaries. Independent creators stand a better chance of success by being visible to all generations and avoiding agents’ filters.

Creators are now able to promote digitally their craft through different e-commerce and online community-building sites. They can also sell their products such as merchandising directly through their own website and social channels like YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram…as well as fund their projects through crowdfunding sites by following these tips.

If creators are clever enough, they will craft their marketing and sales strategies according to their audience’s tastes and leverage their work by targeting different age groups through generic and/or specialised channels and platforms.

 

Building and exploiting your GDPR-compliant data

Building and exploiting your GDPR-compliant data is often one of the weak points of SMEs. Indeed, SMEs frequently do not have an updated database to create marketing campaigns. This is what we are going to look at in this post. The presentation originally comes from a webinar in Spanish by the Valencian Chamber of Commerce. I hope you will find its translation helpful.

In this blog post, we will go through the following agenda points:

• Key aspects
• GDPR
• How to build a database
• How to exploit a database with campaign examples
• Programmes: CRM, email, and automation.

1. Key Aspects

2. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

As you probably know, you can’t store data nor use data that is unnecessary for the purpose of your campaign. For example, if you are a children’s clothes shop, you will need to target parents who have children and their children’s ages. You should only ask for these two pieces of information, and nothing more.

If you would like to know a bit more about data privacy law rules in the EU, UK, and the USA, I recommend you to read this blog.

Privacy policy

You must communicate your privacy policy to your customers, which should be the answers to the questions below:

• Which information to collect about your clients and users
• Which people have access to the information
• Who is responsible for the data processing
• The period during which you are going to store data and the users’ possibility to exercise the ARCO rights (Access, Rectification, Cancellation, and Opposition).

A) Example of a promotion registration form

B) Plugin GDPR

3. How to build a database

A) IN-PERSON RAFFLE TO GET A DATA BITE

B) GOOGLE FORMS

You can use Google Forms to create questionnaires. Google Forms will create a link to the form, which can be used for webinars and newsletters.

C) easy promos

D) FACEBOOK PROSPECTS REGISTRATION FORM

The purpose of social media advertising is to generate revenue through selling your products and getting prospects to sign up for your newsletter. To entice them to do so, it is recommended to offer discounts and a have call-to-action button such as ‘sign up’.

 

E) WEB REGISTRATION FORMS

F) WhatsApp

4. How to exploit a database with campaign examples

All marketing campaigns must be measurable. For example, when it comes to email campaigns, you should check the opening rate of emails.

A) WhatsApp CAMPAIGNS

Mailing-list in WhatsApp: Only the contacts that have your phone number saved in their contacts will receive your broadcast messages.

B) SMS CAMPAIGNS

C) SOCIAL MEDIA AD CAMPAIGNS

C) EMAIL CAMPAIGNS

5. CRM PROGRAMMES –  AUTOMATION

The automation purpose is to retrieve purchases, lost shopping carts.

a) LOYALTY CARD

B) CRM -ERP

C) AUTOMATION PROCESS

D) AUTOMATION SOFTWARE

How to differentiate yourself successfully from the competition in COVID-21?

The webinar about how to differentiate yourself successfully from the competition. It is hosted by Dominique HANS, Sales Trainer, and Consultant at Perform’ Hans and Managing Partner at Value Selling Associates.

N.B: Avis aux français, les diapositives sont en français, puisque ce webinaire a été créé pour le marché français, mais est valade pour tous types de pays en temps de covid.

Webinar Agenda:

• Current context
• What needs to be changed?
• How: Draw your client’s attention.
• Create a need for a differentiator.
• Find out the value of this difference.
• Differentiate proactively.

Differentiation FAILURES and impacts:

Current context:

• Most markets are saturated:
  • Flooded with a low-priced competition.
  • Competitors look alike.

•  The purchasing cycle becomes more complicated:
  • Power changes
  • Budget arbitration
  • What is the value?

The purchasing cycle has very much changed. Now, customers have the power and make their own choices. For budget reasons, companies often decide to internalise their solutions. Consequently, to sell, we need to start off and establish a dialogue around value unlike the example below.

Up to now 71 % of salespeople only talk about their product. This way of selling no longer works.

What does it mean for sales professionals?

• Fewer opportunities.
• Behaviour/Competencies/Expertise.
• The differentiation must go beyond the product and its abilities.
• The dialogue around value must be significant and relevant.

Different or differentiated:

Different:

It refers to the list of your unique abilities. We mean here by unique abilities, the functionalities, and differentiating elements of the products.

Differentiation:

Successfully link your unique abilities with your potential customers’ issues. In other terms, sell unique abilities that are relevant and valuable to your customers.

Let me give you an example:

If I have a business based in France and only working with customers, trying to sell our international services and expertise will not interest them at all.

Furthermore, it is the salesperson’s role to discover additional problems to resolve, which will create further needs.

Going even further/beyond…:

Widen/Research your customer requests to put forward your unique solution abilities compared to the competition.

How to successfully differentiate yourself from your competitors?

• Success rests on the knowledge of companies and their business.
• Our competitive advantage is in the way we sell our products and services, and not based on our product or technical knowledge.
• Become an expert in problems by asking questions to find a solution for our clients.

The reversed approach:

• Understand what urges your potential client to listen to you.
• Switch your dialogue to draw the attention of your conversation partners.
• Link your solution to your potential client’s problems.
• Put into practice the differentiation method to all your clients’ messages: introductions, proposals, customised communications. Repeat 2-3 times throughout your negotiation the differentiating points.

5 differentiating sectors:

• Abilities
• Reduction of risk/brand
• General Terms and Conditions
• Client experience
• Price.

Terms and conditions: small and mid-sized companies can allow themselves to be a little more flexible with their terms and conditions.

Customer experience: the stakes are to figure out the client’s priorities and challenges.

Position your differentiation:

1- The client recognises the need: his problems.

2. The client searches for a solution.

3. Discovery of additional problems: reducing the competition.

The salesperson must look for additional problems to create the need.

The challenge of value fulfilment:

The customers’ stakes are the centre of this challenge and are composed of:

• Stakes
• Problems
• Solutions
• Achieved value.

Develop the value for the client:

VB or BV = Business Value

The tangible value is measured by calculating the Return On Investment (ROI) and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), while the intangible value can be achieved with a sound sales pitch.

For example, the price can be determined by measuring the key performance indicators (KPIs) such as the trading ability.

VP or PV = Personal Value

Personal value is of an inestimable value. It answers the question: What will I earn from it?

For example, for the customer experience, the salesperson must find out what are the client’s personal values, e.g., self-sufficiency, innovation.

For that, they can ask the client: ‘What is important to you personally?’ The salesperson can also help the customer delve further into their decisions since customers often do not take the time to work on this. The salesperson can ask: ‘How do you perceive this solution?’

However, the absence of differentiation rarely indicates that a product or a service is of bad quality. It generally means that we have not succeeded in discovering what was important for the company and for the client.

In the current context where everything goes fast, the client rarely notices this. That is why it is important to ask them more questions to discover their needs.

How do you differentiate yourself?

1. Follow-up customer’s needs to put forward your unique abilities compared to the competition.
2. Develop the value of your differentiators in your potential clients’ and clients’ minds.
3. Bring concrete answers to your clients’ key stakes by becoming their personal trusted adviser.

Action Plan TO differentiate yourself from your competitors:

• Choose an ongoing opportunity:
  • Step 1: Determine where you are different or better than the competing alternative choices.
  • Step 2: Are these differences linked to problems by your client?
  • Step 3: Create specific questions to discover new needs linked to these differentiators.

• Discover the Personal and Business Values linked to your main differentiators.

Before moving to the conclusion, please find answers to the asked questions:

Question 1: Can you please talk about the case of an invitation to public tender/procurement?

Answer: The invitation to tender/the call for bids is a list of the client’s solutions and problems. You need to answer that list and ask your client what are their priorities.

Question 2: What is the human factor in the differentiation?

Answer: Distance selling implies more importance on the content rather than the human interaction.

Question 3: How can I identify the personal value without appearing intrusive?

Answer: The personal value can only be identified in one-to-one meetings with each decision-maker. One needs to identify all alternatives. For example, for a service, you can consider as important the client’s time, money, and human resources.  Traditionally, you can only ask these questions at the second or third meeting. If the client doesn’t answer, you shouldn’t insist and take time to build the relationship.

Question 4: What can I do when a potential client requests a demonstration before even negotiating?

Answer: We highly recommend you leave the demonstration at the very end of the negotiation process, as it often lacks interactions with clients when doing so. If you do go ahead with a demo, make sure to ask for the client’s feedbacks and initiate the demo with the following questions: Your time is precious. I do not want to waste your time. Can I ask you further questions to present you with the most appropriate information/demonstration?

Finally, ‘clients do not buy what you do, but why you do it.’ Quote by Simon Sinek, ‘Start with why’ author.

Festi’Couleurs 2020-2021 by Kirikou Events Association in Toulouse

The Kirikou Events Association presents its flagship event, the Festi’Couleurs 2020-2021, which gathers many visitors every year.

For 13 years now, Festi’Couleurs has been an artistic and festive event around gender diversity. This free event was born out of the desire to value cultural diversity and rich social diversity in Occitanian / Pyrenean / Mediterranean regions.

Coping with this health and economic crisis that has affected all continents, AKE wishes to renew the social, cultural and living-together bond by organising the 14th edition of Festi’Couleurs 2020-2021. “2021 Africa season in Crossed Cultures” will take place on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th May 2021 at the Exhibition Centre Hall 8.

This festival will showcase the art and cultures around the world. It is an opportunity to discover artists from all walks of life: musicians, singers, actors, authors, painters and dancers, and so on. This gathering makes it possible to enjoy a wide range of animations and to live a collective and festive day.

The programme will be rich and varied: concerts, dance, entertainment, games for youngsters and older ones, parades, humour, a charity raffle… The funds raised during this event will be donated to international solidarity actions. This event will also be an opportunity for AKE to renew its trust with its partners.

You will find below their press book explaining:

• their events’ and festivals’ organised throughout the current year 2020 and the year 2021
• all actions taken with the collected funds during these events and festivals.

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How to make concessions in negotiation during a sales process

How to make concessions in negotiation is a presentation given by Michel Rozenberg, Executive & Strategic Consultant at Progress Consulting Belgium in Brussels.

To handle successfully commercial negotiations, he recommends you to follow from the discovery stage to the sale closure ‘the PCCC Process‘, which stands for:

• Prepare,
• Consult,
• Confront,
• Concretise.

Let me go through each stage for you.

1. Prepare

You need to prepare your negotiation on 3 levels: technically (product features, the anticipation of questions), mentally (stress, tactics…), and understand the context (what is it about? What are the meeting objectives?).

2. Consult

This is the stage, where you meet people, establish a rapport, and discover facts.

We call it the ‘sales discovery stage’. It is a time when you must arouse interest in teasing your conversation partner.

However, you shouldn’t develop too much. At this point, you need to capture your interlocutor’s attention by asking strategic questions to discover your potential client’s needs. You become a customer advisor during this discovery/commercial diagnostic phase.

You need to ask open questions such as: Why? Where? How? When? How much/many?

You must stick to relevant questions about:

• Your prospect context
• The streamlined decision-making processes
• How are decisions taken
• Why you are meeting the prospect
• Why they need to alter their situation
• What they have tried before that didn’t work out for them
• How do they see things in the future
• What they would like to get.

3. Confront

You need to start:

• Making and exchanging opening offers
• Making concessions and offer compensations.

This is the ‘trailer’ effect, where you sell the benefits/the final result, by excessively simplifying your products and services. It is a specialised reasoning.

4. Concretise

You make additional offers and concessions until you and your potential client reach an objective. Basically, you sell to your conversation partner the final benefit by going from the generic to the specific. You explain to the conversation partner how your solution in their context compared to the situation you mention, will help them reach their objectives.

Then you either:

• Find an agreement. This decision-making process will be speeded up according to the behavioural customer profiling (Salesforce and communication team). At this stage, you must secure a commitment and a reminder date.
• Find an agreement about a disagreement.

At each of these stages, you should make to engage your client, validate each point, build rapport, and sum up their needs. This is a sales collaboration.

Then, he recommends you to follow a process, i.e. concession patterns as shown below, which I’m going to detail further for you.

Pattern 1: Define your concessions and foresee room for maneuver

Pattern 2: Make them late, then later and later

You need to know your mandate in the selling process as well as show that you don’t give easily cheap deals, by taking your time to make negotiations, once one has been given. Get people to wait.

Pattern 3: Make them smaller and smaller, increase precision

That means give smaller and smaller concessions. You can do comma figures (e.g 1.5 instead of a round figure).

Pattern 4: If possible, make them on cheap topics

They could be concessions that cost less at the start of the negotiating process. For example, it could be a concession on payment terms, not on the product/service price.

Hint: make a list before the meeting, a list of topics.

Pattern 5: Don’t give more than necessary

For example, you could give a specific discount, not more.

Question of threshold:

• At the consultation/confrontation stages: identify this threshold by asking questions in order to get the relevant information.
• Minimum threshold versus maximum threshold. In your career, you may be happy to get a     10 % salary increase but won’t necessarily be happier if you get 20-25 % than if you only got a 10 % threshold.

Pattern 6: Almost always ask for  compensation

• Make concessions deserved
• If you are hard to give concessions, they will not try as much to get further concessions.

Pattern 7: Make them conditional and temporary

They shouldn’t be part of your Terms and Conditions. You could strengthen the urgency or scarcity notion, which should be adapted to the client and product. This will motivate the client to conclude the purchase more quickly and require more effort from them.

Pattern 8: Foresee a small last one at the end

This concession should be given very late in the process.

You could grant a very small one (cheap deal) but it will give a big impact. You should only give it if necessary if it will help close the deal/get the signature or find an agreement.

Pattern 9: Don’t disclose your deadlines

If you do disclose them, it will give your potential client power over you that could be used as manipulation.  This will give the conversation partner a competitive advantage and give them excuses to put pressure on you to close the deal. Do as if the end of the quarter isn’t important to you.

Finally, when possible, try to split concessions into several pieces. That will give them the impression they will gain something several times. It will have a bigger impact, even if the end value is the same. Remember, people are still hunters.

 

 

 

 

Opportunity Hunting in Chaotic Times like Covid Crisis

Opportunity Hunting in Chaos. It is a presentation about innovation given by Jeremy Gutsche, Trend Hunter CEO & NYT Bestselling Author.

Chaos creates opportunity but also sparks ongoing change. Often, people don’t notice the extent of the ongoing change.

Furthermore, when hunting opportunity in chaos, it’s very important to develop a series of tactics and tools to help you filter through the noise, in order to see each of those incremental steps and better identify clusters of opportunities.

Indeed, in any markets/companies/organisations, when it comes to identifying opportunities in chaos, there are really 3 different things to be good at :

• Reset your expectations
• Have a tactic or toolkit for hunting new ideas, inspiration.
• Have a system of filtering through those ideas to find a cluster of opportunities.

We are going to step through each of these steps into opportunity hunting.

Additionally, when opportunity hunting and getting those results mentioned above, you need to ask yourself this question: where do you find new ideas?

Here are some example of ideas to help you get inspired:

• Trend safaris: Try to experience other industries and cultures (IKEA)
• Look for subcultures: Look for subcultures of cool or the opposite of mainstream (QUIKSILVER)
• Create a full perceptual map of the industry: look at restaurants, food trucks, anything related to the product cycle of what it is they are creating (PEPSI)
• Randomise your inspiration: go to lectures, webinars you’ve never been to before or would normally be interested in (IDEO)
• People watching: visit competitors and smaller shops to study what customers are doing (NESTLE)
• Pursue curiosities: answer the question ‘wouldn’t it be cool if… ?’ (APPLE/CANVA).

1- Tactics from our clients

The first concept we will dive into will be:

2- Four levels of opportunity hunting

A cluster is a group of items that have the same common factor. For eg, here caffeinated products (drink, crips, chewing gums).

3- Innovation exercise in opportunity hunting: design your own hip hotel.

a) your market (eg Hotels)

b) adjacent markets (eg Hotel services)

c) your target market demographic likes and is doing

In a 2.0 World, the vending machine would give a free drink if you use the hashtag shown on the machine.

d) Group into meaningful clusters

But here is the catch: the human mind is great at recognising patterns…by creating shortcuts… (bad!)

E) Throw your first clusters away

F) Re-cluster!

Now, you have these groups and need to pick only one of those new clusters to create a new hotel. And what you’ll find that at round 2, people come up with more interesting and unique hotels and less expensive.

Here is what happens. When you focus on a cluster, you’ll start working on a cluster important to your customers, because it is based on a series of ideas more likely to succeed.

4- Workshop: repeat these tactics for your brand

So, if you are wondering, how did I find these 6 clusters? Well, I use the patterns as follow:

• In-room luxury: re-direction or surprise
• Nostalgia co-branding: cyclicality
• Humanisation of pets: simplicity, focusing on something very important for a specific group of people
• Viral youth targeting: looking for things that are rebellious
• Renting cultural experience: acceleration by taking one small idea and taking it to the next level.

I’ll show you now how this works. In the chaos, big changes are like splashes in water that create ripples of opportunity. The way I think about it is that ideas are like a plethora of little dots. Each dot represents a new idea. But those dots are a little more connected than you think. If you find multiple clusters and start adding up, you’ll find several related clusters, you can identify megatrends.

But if you dial megatrends up, even more, you can find the patterns. And the patterns are going to be the focus of the next 5-10 minutes, that we’ll dive into.

5- Patterns of opportunities

You could use the patterns of opportunities to label the change you see out there.

But you could use the patterns the other way. Instead of diagnosing, looking outward to find opportunities that are out there.

Divergence: ‘Instead of marketing to the masses, be irresistible to a specific group of people’.

Google didn’t want to buy Facebook in 2007 and tried to replicate what Facebook was doing, ie copying their business model. Guess what? It failed badly.

But, if we used ‘Divergence’ as a business model, we could break down what Facebook was doing and find new opportunities. Divergence means people don’t want to be part of the mainstream.

So, Facebook was a site for Friends. So, what is the opposite of that? A site for celebrities, and people you don’t know. That opportunity was filled by Twitter later.

If people are archiving all of their photos, what if I don’t want to have my photos of parties to be archived for the rest of my adult life to be seen by others? Well, something needed to be less permanent, creating an opportunity for Snapchat.

If people are photographing their everyday life, and their food, and ruining the art of photography, something needs to bring that art back. So, twelve people coded up Instagram and sold, interestingly enough, to Facebook for $1 billion, which is a nice check to split between twelve colleagues.

A) Divergence Pattern

If you want to find out divergence in your own market, you take an example of the innovations  you are seeing and you’d ask questions like :

Nonetheless,  I’m not going to explain all of these megatrends or sub-patterns today, because you can dive into those resources at trendhunter.com (especially trendhunter.com/pro). You’ll see our entire site is broken down like this, so you can learn the methodology.

Instead, i’m going to keep rolling on and walk you through each of the patterns.

B) Acceleration Pattern

Acceleration is the concept of ‘taking a little idea or customer experience and make it bigger, better, smarter, and more exciting‘.

I’ll give you an example. There’s a guy, who hated marathons. He thought marathons were stupid. You know why? Because people work really, then run and are not happy with the results, because, guess what, it’s a race. If you asked people who did marathons, how they did. People will almost always answer sheepishly: ‚I wish I did better, it wasn’t exactly perfect but I got it done. And if you asked people ‚why did you do the marathon?‘. They will answer ‚ I wanted to have it completed.

So, there is that sense of accomplishment feeling, and by accelerating it, you could make something more interesting. That’s when you created the concept of tough mudder, an experience where there is no clock or timer. And as you run, navigate the course,  you’ll go through mud bogs… and you’ll do it all with your friends. So, it’s kind of cool because you do it as a team. You do it together, take pictures and everyone changes their telephone backgrounds to be that picture of their life accomplishment tough mudder. And in the future, if you ask the question; ‚how did you do in that race ?’, you’ll answer ‘I did awesomely. Take a look at this picture!‘

The company went from 0 to $70 million in two years, teaching us we need to re-think what people actually want.

To find acceleration patterns in your industry, you’ve got to ask:

C) Cyclicality Pattern

This brings me to the next pattern ‚cyclicality’ with the simple notion that ‘everything old is new again’.

Consistently in time, we see a great example of designs, and culture from the past re-embed themselves in the modern-day. You know that people love certain things to come back. Cyclicality continues in almost every industry in a variety of ways.

To get the cyclical opportunity, you first ask :

D) Convergence Pattern

This brings me to the next pattern of ‚convergence‘ and the notion of ‚your next idea exists in some combination of things you already know‘.  

Take a guy in prison who couldn’t help but think how different his life could be if he’d simply joined his dad and his brother in the family bakeshop. He studied all the little tiny trends that seemed to impact the world of baking. Then, he made the ingredients organic, and local, which gets to another segment, the restaurant. There, he put solar panels on the roof, which gets the eco crowd. He brought fair wages and more importantly got an element of social good by hiring ex-convicts. Finally, shock branding was pretty big at the time with the advertising slogan ‚Dave’s killer bread, it’s killer good, say no to bread on drugs‘.

The bakeshop went from a tiny shop to a $250 million bread empire in just a matter of years.

To get to a convergence opportunity, you need to ask yourself :

E) Reduction Pattern

Now, let’s move to the ‚reduction’ pattern, which is the concept of ‘it’s not about getting a big idea, it’s about a little idea you can make big’.

Think about all the apps that have a single function, yet are so successful because they do that function very well.

Let me tell you a story of a guy whose future wife broke up with the engagement. He was left with a ring and initially didn’t quite know what to do. So, even though he was very late to the game, he started an online jewelry auction called ‚I do and now I don’t‘, so that the broken people can exchange their jewels. Now, he wanted to help people get over that little fear of how to make that transaction safe. Between the buyer and seller, he added an authenticator, to make sure the jewel is real.

With the concept of reduction, you are trying to be irresistible to a specific group of people.

To find your reduction opportunity, you’d scan your ideas and opportunities and ask yourself :

F) Redirection Pattern

Then, we will move on to the last of the six patterns we will view today, which is ‚redirection‘, that element of surprise. It is about ‚Reinventing and re-positioning the possibility of what could be’.

Here are a few examples of taking weaknesses into opportunities:

Re-direction opportunities can be found by looking at :

Summarising all this, let’s review the tactics for your brand in your opportunity-hunting strategy:

The new ideas based on the cluster refer to your newly found customer insights.

6- 4 Levels of Breakthrough

Finally, let me walk you through a bonus part based on my experience of opportunity hunting.

A defining choice: you will get presented with something at some point in your career that you could do. It’s within your grasp. It’s often so close to your comfort zone, so similar to things that you have tried, that you dismiss it. If you want to not dismiss it, you must explicitly identify your comfort zone with your team. You then need to push your limits, and make a bold choice.

A dismissable trend: it happens when you are an expert. It’s a trend in your industry where your expertise makes you think you know better. It explains why so many iconic innovators have missed out on huge opportunities that were within their reach. If you don’t want to miss a trend, be humble, ask questions, recognise the blinding power of your own expertise.

A work-shoppable idea: it’s something that comes to you, it’s probably not a bad idea, but you need to workshop through it with your team. If you want to identify a work-shoppable idea, challenge what seems possible, deep-dive your curiosities, and pursue your next customers (not the ones you already have).

All of this brings me to the final idea, the hidden gem.

All in all, I’ll summarise by saying, you are going to create your future. You have so much potential within your grasp. Put push harder, act sooner, and never give up, because you are capable of more than you think.

 

How to digitalise your market research in 2020-2021?

The company Up Biz – Commercial Agitated Pack gives you commercial training on how to digitalise your market research in 2020-2021.

In this webinar, they  talk about :

• What is market research?
• What’s the meaning of it?
• Which tools can you use?

Although door-to-door selling still works, depending on what you do, what you sell, and who you are visiting. However, in times of the corona crisis, digital market research has the upper-hand.

1- DIGITAL MARKET RESEARCH

When we talk about digital market research, we mean :

a) INBOUND MARKETING (ENTRANT)

Digital Marketing, also called Inbound Marketing (in French: prospection entrante).

Inbound marketing is how your leads (French : prospects) know you and how you draw them to you to get contact opportunities.

The basis for marketing is your website, which you will connect to Google. Google is the motorway, where everyone researches information. Your website must be well indexed on Google to allow good visibility but also be connected to the existing social networks (eg LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).

In Marketing, we use 3 foundations :

• SEO : Search Engine Optimisation (in French: référencement naturel). This is how you will write relevant web content to be ranked on Google when someone is looking for your company.
• SEA : Search Engine Ads (in French: référencement payant). It refers to Google ads on the Internet. When people will look for you, you will be in the first results shown called “ad”. This allows you to be visible.

Both SEO and SEA are important. Be careful, however, one takes longer to get results than the other one. SEO takes between 6 and 12 months to be effective by following a real content strategy.

SEA is much quicker. In general, you pay Google and you are visible within the next following days. So, it allows you to generate quickly website traffic and convert this traffic into leads.

Both are complementary. SEO is a long-term time investment but doesn’t cost anything, whereas SEA works in the short-term since once you stop paying Google, it’s finished for you. It is recommended to mix both.

• SMO : Social Media Optimisation –(in French : Optimisation des Réseaux Sociaux) allows you to create a community to get your website known what you sell (products or services), in order to generate traffic to your website, convert it into leads or even customers.

Contrarily to what some digital agencies will tell you, the Inbound marketing isn’t a one-solution-fits-all-situations. Outbound marketing (in French : prospection sortante) is still necessary. You will have to market research hard. Outbound marketing still has a big weight.

B) OUTBOUND MARKETING (SORTANT)

When one talks about outbound marketing (in French: prospection sortante), they mean contacting leads either by phone or by email. Although these are more traditional/classic market research techniques, if you do not carry them out, you will cut yourself out of a big market research part. Outbound marketing allows you to connect straight away what you sell to your target market. Furthermore, it’s not because it’s a traditional market research technique, that you will do it the old-fashioned way. Today, we use many digital products to create qualitative research. It is on this that I’m going to delve into and introduce you to different digital products I use.

Note as well that in 2019, 80% of companies in France achieved more than 80 % of their turnover thanks to outbound marketing.

2- GOAL: CREATION OF QUALITY DATABASE

You must create a good database that stands up.

You can do in-depth research on your ideal client profiles with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Sales Navigator is a paying tool but it does better-targeted research than LinkedIn premium. LinkedIn Premium doesn’t allow a huge amount of data scraping. You can use filters such as :

• Job position
• Job field
• Years of experience
• Turnover
• Workforce
• Comments/Post shares…

You can also scrape data from LinkedIn and automate this process through Phantom Buster.

Phantom Buster will pretend to be You with your LinkedIn profile. To do this, you will need to copy and paste the link to your Sales Navigator/LinkedIn research. It will scrape data from each lead profile and convert it into an Excel spreadsheet table.

Then, you can also use other tools to find the phone numbers and email addresses of your leads. There are many options. Zoho is a free tool, but the downside is that it’s not interacting with any other tools.

Other tools they recommend you use:

• Dropcontact
• Hunter.

These tools allow you to find the information you require and qualify your prospects while respecting the current General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

There is also ProspectIn, but you can’t export the data. Everything is integrated into the tool.

Anyway, what you need to remember is that these tools allow you to sort out market research information.

3- DATABASE CONSOLIDATION AND PROCESSING

Once you have this data, you will need to populate it in a tool, that will allow you to capitalise on the information you just gathered.

The unavoidable tool to do that is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database. Without a CRM, a salesperson is nothing today! The CRM will allow you to keep in touch with your clients and keep track of all actions done or required. In other terms, it will allow you to follow-up with your leads or clients.

You have several options for CRM software like:

• HubSpot (free of charge)
• Pipedrive (€12 per month).

In your CRM tool, you can add tasks such as dates for follow-up calls. You can also add details on the follow-up call results such as:

• Not interested in – do not call back.
• Follow-up call in X days…

If a lead answers you that they are not interested in, you can just answer; ‘I take into account…I am available…’. Most importantly, do not re-contact someone who replied they didn’t want to hear back from you.

You can also use Buffer to schedule your social media post, which will also allow you to do a follow-up.

Afraid of cold calling? And why not start by cold emailing? Before start sending any emails, of course, do your research to find out the best approach to use to tailor your emails to your leads. For your research, you need to answer questions such as :

• What are the issues your leads are facing?
• Why?
• Is it relevant to exchange on the topic? (it is also a question you can ask your lead)
• What do they post, talk about?

For cold emailing, they recommend you to use Lemlist, in order to create campaigns.

Lemlist will tell you the success of your campaign by giving you data like :

• Open rate
• Answers
• Clicks
• Bouncebacks…

You can also add your email pictures.

Before starting reaching out, make sure to find out what problems your target market is facing, in order to customise better your campaign. Then, schedule on a monthly basis follow-up calls with a targeted lead list. If there are customers that aren’t online in your target market, you can connect with them through business networks and associations.

Finally, they recommend you to dedicate 1 to 2 hours to market research every day and count roughly €100-160 per month for all comprehensive market research tools, as these will replace a good few of your car trips to visit customers.

If you wish to get in touch with the UP BIZ, you can contact David Julien by email at david.julien@upbiz.fr. He is based in Rouen, Normandy in France.