I’m my own best focus group.

I really am. I learn more from studying my own behaviours than I do from anything or anywhere else. I think far too many people who practice Marketing fail to do this. They spend their time wondering how a target segment will react to a promotion or a campaign, yet they never imagine themselves as the recipient of the proposed promotion and attempt to diagnose what their own reaction would be.

Another thing I’ve learned is – listen to your gut. If I think I’m going to react a certain way, but my mind uses logic to argue otherwise, I’ve learned to prioritize my gut over my mind. Of course, it took me several years and numerous under-performing campaigns to realize this. Then again, I never said I was a quick learner.

I’ll give you a recent, personal example.

I’m involved in a hockey playoff pool. It cost me $20 to join. The purse is split up depending on where you finish the pool. If I finish in first, I can win almost $200. Not a bad return.

Okay, the strategy in most of these pools is to pick the team you think will survive the most rounds, and then pick as many players as you can from that team. Over the long haul, you’ll earn a steady collection of points, and eventually you should place very well. In my case, I decided to pick the New Jersey Devils. They weren’t my first team choice, but based on where I was in the drafting order, that was the team that seemed to offer me the best chance. What makes matters worse is that I’m a fanatical Ottawa Senators fan, and my childhood favourite team was the Detroit Red Wings. Said another way – my team “loyalty” belonged to Ottawa first, and Detroit second – but not New Jersey.

Part of the pleasure in the pool is the daily email banter among the participants as the updated standings are released. Recently, one of the participants (who is not doing well at all) declared that his poorly performing Eastern conference team would pick up the pace and make it to the semi-finals but would lose there to Ottawa. Similarly, he declared, his poorly performing Western conference team would pick up the pace and make it to the finals, where they would also lose to Ottawa. In this scenario, he would climb back up the standings, win the pool, yet still have his favourite team – Ottawa, just like me – win the Cup. Of course, we ridiculed him for such fantasy, but then again that’s just what we men do. We trash talk.

Now, at the same time, this scenario got me to thinking. Would I be okay if that were to happen? If it did, I would not win the pool however my team would win the Stanley Cup. Guess what? I was absolutely okay with that. So, looking at it differently, you could argue that I was willing to sacrifice $20 for the team to which I was loyal would win. Isn’t that interesting? Marketers would love me because I would pay incremental money to support a brand I was loyal to.

But would I? Let’s look at it differently again. If, before the playoffs started, someone approached me and said “If you give me $20 now, I will ensure the Ottawa Senators win the Stanley Cup.” Assuming I took them seriously, I know I’d hesitate to pay that $20. I might pay $5, but probably not $20. That’s a lot of money. So, what I’ve learned about myself as a consumer is that I’m willing to pay a modest amount of money to support my loyalties (or my brand biases), but I need to be convinced to pay a lot of money to support my loyalties. Hence, my loyalty only goes so far. I’ve also learned that I’m willing to accept the loss of an existing investment ($20) if it means I achieve my ultimate goal (Ottawa winning the Cup). These two observations point to two different parts of the buying cycle.

The first lesson learned here is that I need to build loyalty for my product offerings. I need to make it the preferred brand. If I do that, consumers will actually pay nominally more for my brand than they would pay for a similar and equally effective brand. Hence, I increase my average selling price, my overall revenues, my profitability and my operating efficiency by simply investing in building my brand.

The second lesson learned here is that I can convert an existing competitor’s customer and make them my customer – causing them to change loyalties – if I can demonstrate that my offering will deliver to them the value they are seeking (like winning the Cup). Hence, in any campaign or sales cycle, you will only disrupt and oust the incumbent if you can demonstrate a significant gain in value. To do this, you must need to understand what the customer is trying to achieve. If you don’t do this then you will never know how to position and justify your offering over your competitors. This audit process, or assessment process, is the critical part of the sales activity. It also says that you need to have a very deep understanding of the operational and financial impact your product has made for your existing customers. By knowing that, you can actually prove the value statement you will claim in the sales cycle. You will appear as having high integrity.

What’s interesting is that neither of these two lessons learnt had anything to do with a product’s features or functions. However, isn’t it true we spend most of our time discussing those very things? And that’s why those campaigns, those sales tactics, always fail. A feature, or a function, is a cool thing. But, a feature, or a function, that results in demonstrable operational or financial gains, is a smart investment.

And all of these observations happened because of a simple hockey playoff pool. Oh, and because I remembered to study my own behaviour as an indication of how my potential target consumers might react. So – are you your own focus group?