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Book Summary
Here's a summary of the revenue-increasing information you'll find in the book (the "what"). The book itself tells you the "how."
Part 1:
On the Banks of the River of Revenue
The first 33 pages of this book—which you can read in about a half hour—is a fable about three families living on the River of Revenue. One day, their river dries up.
How they deal with this life-changing event can help you react in a successful way when your own phones stop ringing.
Reading the fable will make it easier for your subconscious brain to accept the true source of revenue (buyer desire), and will help you absorb the no-nonsense, step-by-step revenue growth concepts in the rest of the book.
(Pages 1 - 33)
Part 2:
How to Find Your Own River of Revenue
Chapter 1: Expect to Be Blindsided
Even if you're at the top of your game today, it can change in an instant.
Why? Take your pick: world events, mergers and acquisitions, shifts in technology, an aggressive new competitor, changes in consumer tastes. Or, you could, as the book says, "wake up one morning and realize that you don't want to go to work."
Expect to be blindsided. It's just the way it is.
(Pages 33 - 35)
Chapter 2: Finding a Problem You Can Solve
People have problems. They're constantly on the lookout for solutions. You can help. When you do, they reward you with money. It's a great system, and it works—if and when you focus on their problem.
(Pages 36 - 44)
Chapter 3: Tapping into Buyer Desire
In any commercial endeavor, you can take the "product-centric" path or the "buyer-centric" path. This chapter shows what happens when you do one or the other.
It then explains how to conduct customer research—yourself, using nothing more than your telephone and the right interviewing techniques—to determine what customers really want from you. (The entire Appendix is devoted to a detailed and insightful step-by-step guide to successful interviewing techniques.)
It should be noted that these interviewing calls often lead to business; in the course of interviewing, people decide that they like you and want to buy from you. But, as the book cautions, don't use these calls to sell. It will backfire. You can always call them back.
(Pages 45 - 61)
Chapter 4: Developing the Promise You Can Keep
After you've made your phone calls, and you understand what prospective customers want, it's time to figure out how you can meet customer needs with the resources at your disposal.
In other words, what is the promise they want you to keep, and how can you keep it?
Your brand, in fact, is the promise that you keep (not the one you make). This chapter explains this concept, one that Kristin is famous for, and shows you how to put it to work.
You have five promise-keeping resources: your people, products, principles, policies, and procedures. This chapter uses examples from highly respected companies, such as Southwest Airlines, FedEx, Amazon.com, to show how the CEOs of those companies use their company's best asset to keep their promise.
This chapter will also help you develop the promise itself, showing examples of good and bad promises.
This chapter alone, if we do say so ourselves, is worth the price of the book. It will save you beaucoup bucks, because you will be able to avoid wasting precious time and money on "mission statements" and "positioning statements" that make you feel good but do nothing for your bottom line.
(Pages 62 - 89)
Chapter 5: The Five Levels of Buyer Desire
Before you can sell successfully, you have to understand the amount of interest your buyer is bringing to the buying process. It can range from "Irrelevance" (Level 1) to "Lust" (Level 5). If your customer is barely interested and your message treats them as if they are obsessed, your message will not work.
This chapter will help you understand how to move your product up the scale, and what to do if you suddenly find yourself at the receiving end of a "lust fest." Yes, it can happen. But you can't bank on it.
(Pages 90 - 103)
Chapter 6: Understanding the Buying Process
You have a selling process. They have a buying process. If your selling process conflicts with their buying process, guess what? You won't sell. All they have to do is walk away...and they will.
This chapter will help you understand how the buying process works. It introduces the concept that there are four types of products (and services) in the world, based on the amount of scrutiny that the buyer applies to the purchase: Light, Medium, Heavy, and Intense.
If you are selling a product, it will fall into one of the first three categories. If you are selling a service, or an incredibly complex product that "comes with" services, it will fall into the "Intense Scrutiny" category.
To give you an idea, the Light Scrutiny products are "see it, buy it" products. Think bubble gum. The buyer only has a few questions, most of which are answered at the point of purchase.
People buying Medium Scrutiny products—such as clothing and simple office supplies—have more questions. You must answer those questions during their buying process in order for the sale to be completed.
People buying Heavy Scrutiny products have lots of questions, get other people involved in the decision, take it for a spin, sign a contract, and expect reliable after-sale support. Think cars, major appliances, complex software programs, and houses.
And, lastly, people buying Intense Scrutiny services do all of the above, but then enter into a close relationship with the seller, where many services are performed over a long period of time.
The biggest mistake you can make is to try to sell a Light Scrutiny product as you would a Heavy Scrutiny product, or vice-versa. Yet, companies do it all the time.
This chapter sets the stage for the next four chapters, which describe, in detail, how to sell each type of product.
Each chapter covers both online and offline &ortraditional") marketing methods. The author has been on the bleeding edge of technology since before technology was cool; she provides a balanced, buyer-centric view of how technology can help you make sales, and how to use technology to your best advantage.
(Pages 104 - 122)
Chapter 7: Marketing and Selling a Light Scrutiny Product
Learn the buyer's frame of mind, questions buyers ask as they are buying a Light Scrutiny product, and how you should allocate your marketing budget if you are selling a Light Scrutiny product. Find out what works and what will not as you move your product out into the marketplace.
Quite a bit of space is devoted to PR in this chapter, because the majority of your budget will be allocated to "generating awareness"—and PR is one of the best ways to get attention. So even if you sell a different type of product, you'll want to make sure you read this chapter carefully, for the PR insights and strategies alone.
Each chapter covers both online and offline &ortraditional") marketing methods. The author has been on the bleeding edge of technology since before technology was cool; she provides a balanced, buyer-centric view of how technology can help you make sales, and how to use technology to your best advantage.
(Pages 123 - 149)
Chapter 8: Marketing and Selling a Medium Scrutiny Product
You will learn the buyer's frame of mind, questions buyers ask as they are buying a Medium Scrutiny product, and how you should allocate your marketing budget if you are selling a Medium Scrutiny product. You will find out what works and what will not as you move your product out into the marketplace.
This chapter also discusses the importance of factual communication in your sales copy.
(Pages 158 - 171)
Chapter 9: Marketing and Selling a Heavy Scrutiny Product
Ditto: The buyer's frame of mind, questions buyers ask as they are buying a Heavy Scrutiny product, and how you should allocate your marketing budget if you are selling a Heavy Scrutiny product.
Sellers of Heavy Scrutiny products must answer many more questions, satisfy many more types of buyers during each sale, and can more easily lose the sale during the course of the long buying process. You will learn how to avoid the all-too-common pitfalls.
This chapter also explains what salespeople need—including your selling partners—based on the author's experience helping the world's largest (and smallest) companies with their dealers, distributors, and resellers.
(Pages 172 - 199)
Chapter 10: Marketing and Selling an Intense Scrutiny Product
The Intense Scrutiny chapter covers the buyer's frame of mind, questions buyers ask as they are buying an Intense Scrutiny product or service, and how you should allocate your marketing budget if you are selling an Intense Scrutiny product or service.
Note that this chapter is really about selling services. If you're selling a service, not only will you have to do everything involved in a Heavy Scrutiny sale, but you will have to sell continually, as you complete each project for your client.
This chapter explains how to manage client expectations, maximize your ongoing relationship marketing efforts (email, websites, etc.), and do the best job of after-sale support.
(Pages 200 - 253)
Chapter 11: Building a Buying Process Map
The most destructive battles inside companies occur between marketing and sales. The information in this chapter can end that civil war in your company, forever.
It will show you how to build a Buying Process Map that outlines, at each step in the customer's buying process, who is involved, what they care about, the questions they ask, the answers that satisfy them, and the best marketing and selling tools for conveying messages and answering questions.
Once this map is built, and marketing creates the tools needed at each step, salespeople will find that every sale is more easily made. They will stop complaining that marketing isn't giving them what they need. Marketing people will be able to focus on lead generation and new methods of bringing in customers (such as search engine marketing).
You won't believe the difference it can make when your marketing and salespeople are united in a cooperative effort to support the customer's buying process.
(Pages 254 - 267)
Chapter 12: Removing the Barriers to Continuous Improvement
After you've learned how to identify revenue opportunities, you need to take full advantage of them. This requires the full support of everyone in your organization.
The same Rivers techniques can be used to identify where the problems lie and resolve them.
Employee desires will be more closely aligned with company goals. Revenues always increase when this happens.
(Pages 268 - 275)
Chapter 13: Reaching for the Power Baton
Before customer-centric marketing can succeed, the CEO has to be on board. This chapter will help the non-CEO reader understand how to help the CEO see "selling" from the customer's point of view—as a buying process.
It explains how marketing has changed since the Internet (it used to be 80% creative and 20% logistics; now it's just the opposite).
It also shows how different types of people in a company—finance, sales, engineering, etc.—go about generating revenue, and how their natural inclinations need to be overcome in order for their efforts to succeed.
(Pages 276 - 289)
Chapter 14: Charging the Right Price
Chapter 14 covers pricing strategy from the customer's perspective. It explains how to use simple research to find out what customers would be willing to pay for your new product or service.
(Pages 290 - 293)
Chapter 15: Be Willing to Make the Leap—and Keep the Faith
Even when you know what to do, it can be difficult to get yourself to do it.
Rivers of Revenue lays out a step-by-step method for generating revenue, no matter what you're selling or what the general economy is doing. But you have to follow the steps.
You'll find all sorts of reasons to avoid interviewing your customers and prospects. The day you finally make that first call will be an eye-opening, life-changing day.
"I can't tell you how many people have called me, all excited, after they made their first few calls," Kristin says. "Not only did they understand exactly what they had to do, they had also made friends with their customers, in a way that was impossible when they were 'selling' to them. Those customers would then become trusted advisors for them as they grew their business."
This "keep the faith" chapter will help you get on the phone and take those first steps toward more revenue.
It also reveals how Kristin and her husband, Philip, dealt with their own drying-up river as their industry changed, and what they learned from the experience.
(Pages 294 - 310)
Appendix: A Guide to Effectively Interviewing Buyers
Your own prospects and customers will be thrilled to tell you what they really want and how they want to be sold to.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but thousands of customer interviews have convinced Kristin it's true.
You do have to conduct these interviews in a way that makes the interviewee glad to take your call and tell you what you need to know. There are many subtleties to the process, all spelled out in the Appendix.
(Pages 311- 323)
That's it...the Rivers of Revenue income-generating process.
Buy the book...here or at Amazon...so you can put the process to work—and start generating your own Rivers of Revenue!
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"A powerhouse of wisdom. Kristin revitalizes
companies—and careers."
—Jim Sterne,
Author of Web Metrics and Marketing on the Internet
"No one is better at understanding how
customers think."
—Jeffrey Tarter, Editor, Soft*Letter
"One of America's most famous marketing
strategy consultants."
—Anne Holland, Publisher and Managing Editor, MarketingSherpa
"New and powerful ideas."
—Becky Dale, Marketing and Sales Manager, RC Family
of Companies
