Summary for those who don't have time to read this entire "About Customeris3" page:
This "about" page is intentionally detailed.
To create your diversification strategy, manage its implementation and manage the results you'll be working a lot with me.
So by understanding me, my reasons for founding Customeris3 and the customer creation ethos you can decide if we would work well together.
However, I appreciate that you may be scanning this page on your phone or don't have time to read it fully.
So following is a summary:
A salesperson at heart but now both poacher & gamekeeper
Between the age of 12 and before I left school I'd built a car cleaning round, gardening round, a 2nd hand magazine business and regularly canvassed door to door for home improvement solutions.
I love every aspect of selling and business development.
Prospecting, lead generation, closing a deal and ensuring my new customer receives the solution and success I promised them.
Coming ashore as a sales engineer after 15 years working "at sea" & offshore, the sales process I'd practised in my teens was very much the same.
Cold call to find prospects. Then give them all the valuable product/service knowledge only I had access to! Then consultatively work with them to solve a problem and sell a solution.
Today only the final part of that process remains. Through the power of the internet, a prospective buyer finds your company and does all the research before contacting you.
My 12-year-old self today would have a keyword-rich Facebook page with photos of valeted cars & happy customers. Prospective customers would find me via keywords entered or spoken into a device. When contacting me they'd have knowledgeable questions like "did I offer waterless washing?" or "were my products environmentally friendly?" Of course, I'd be expecting those questions through social listening.
This shift in buyer behaviour has increased the importance of marketing and also sales to focus on customer success, not simply initial sales revenue.
The maritime and shipping industries are known for being conservative and slow to adapt to new ways. Sales and marketing included.
However, this shift is increasingly impacting these sectors as I discovered myself last decade when starting a business in shipping finance. I networked, attended conferences, visited trade shows and occasionally advertised but the ROI was woefully poor.
Obviously, I'd heard of digital marketing so I hired a marketing agency. Not one that understood maritime & shipping but one that particularly favoured Facebook ads.
It was a disaster.
Fortunately owing to my inquisitive nature and thirst for knowledge I analysed why digital marketing, supposedly the key to prospecting and lead generation had failed for my new business?
Research led me to persona development, core messaging, keyword research, buyer journey etc., and then came an epiphany.
Digital marketing had failed for my business, despite being an accomplished salesperson and business developer because I didn't understand, and the agency hadn't bothered to start with, the marketing fundamentals. Or as it's known, marketing strategy.
Already qualified in maritime & shipping business and commercial law, alongside extensive experience in research, prospecting, sales, business development, management and finance, marketing strategy was the final piece to complete my commercial puzzle.
Now a "salesperson 4.0" and qualified in marketing I am both a poacher and gamekeeper.
Able to develop the correct marketing, sales and customer strategy, plan and tactics to address any business diversification ambition or challenge.
Inspired by the writings of Peter Drucker
Studying for an MBA I discovered the work & writings of a famous 20th-century management consultant, Peter Drucker.
One sentence in one book resonated with me as it summed up my entire sales & business development career:
"The purpose of a business is to create & keep a customer"
I've amended that slightly over the years to a "profitable loyal customer advocate" but Peter's original statement underpins the vision for creating Customeris3 and for every one of my clients.
Whatever customer creation strategies & tactics are used for commercial success from the disciplines of research, marketing, sales and customer-centricity, you ultimately want to generate as many profitable loyal customers as possible.
In fact, it's essential whether you want to build a stable long-term business, business division or sell and exit.
It's "Me" but it's also "We"
With several decades of technical experience and commercial expertise in the Maritime, Shipping & Offshore sectors you will always deal with me for strategic development, planning, system development and tactical choice.
That stated I'm not a consultant who just creates a diversification strategy and leaves you with a well-intentioned plan. I'll oversee that implementation then measure & analyse to ensure a strategy delivers the results expected.
Because I'm the person who understands your business, your ambitions, the market in which you operate and the person you trusted with your overall business diversification ambition or challenge.
Therefore ultimately I'll be judged on the results delivered.
That's "Me"
Although judged for the customer creation result, I am wholly independent of tactics.
So, unlike an Agency, the solutions I propose are not biased towards a set of tactics I'd like you to buy.
If you don't have a specific customer-facing staff then tactics will be outsourced to specialised providers.
You can freely choose your own providers or one of my approved partners.
My partners have years of experience in a specific marketing, sales or customer-centric tactic and wherever possible have a similar experience in the maritime industry to mine.
That's the "We"
You'll see "I" and "We" used interchangeably throughout this site and that's the reason why 