Pain Killer Marketing: How to Turn Customer Pain into Market Gain [Hardcover]

Henry Devries (Author), Chris Stiehl (Author), null (Editor, Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 2008

Both business and customers feel pain when standards are not met. To kill this pain, a business must do more than conduct market research, it must know what to do with this information. Pain Killer Marketing presents effective methods for listening to and collecting customer pain. More importantly, it demonstrates how to implement data and drive profi ts. An excellent reference for C level executives, product managers, market research practitioners and those wanting to become more customer-centric . Anyone who has a suffering customer, internal or external, can benefit from Pain Killer Marketing.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Chris Stiehl is a market-research and strategic-consultant for companies like Palm, Cisco, LifeScan (Johnson & Johnson) and other high tech companies. With over 30 years of experience Stiehl has worked in product design, competitive intelligence and market research for, PG&E, Polaroid Corporation, B.F. Goodrich, and the Cadillac Motor Car Division of GM, including participating on their winning Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award team. Chris has taught at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, UC San Diego, and UC Berkeley.

Henry DeVries is founder of the New Client Marketing Institute. He has
coached thousands of companies on how to fi nd new customers. Henry has served as member of the executive education faculty at UC San Diego over 20 years, completed specialized studies at Harvard Business School. Th e author of Self-Marketing Secrets and Client Seduction, Henry is a sought-after speaker where he reveals in fun and humorous ways more than 1,000 pragmatic strategies to achieve marketing returns of 400% to 2,000%.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wbusiness Books; First Edition edition (April 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0832950165
• ISBN-13: 978-0832950162
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,274,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Stiehl is a writer, speaker, teacher and consultant. He is a marketing and market research contrarian. He believes that focus groups are overused and abused in american business. Surveys are often NOT representative of the "Voice of the Customer." In fact, they usually represent what management wants to know rather than what the customer wants to say. Chris believes that the customers should write the survey questions, as the methods in his book illustrate. Managing by surveys is akin to driving down the road while staring into the rearview mirror: that's what happened in the past. Don't we want to know what will happen in the future? Chris recommends developing internal predictive metrics to forecast future customer satisfaction from your current business metrics. He helps his clients develop and implement these metrics.

Chris has two master's degrees from the University of Michigan (Experimental Psychology and Inustrial & Operations Engineering) plus coursework toward a master's in Applied Statistics from Oakland University. He has worked for Polaroid Corporation, General Motors (Cadillac Division) and Pacific Gas & Electric Company. His client list includes several Fortune 500 companies and smaller enterprises such as a local movie theater. He was on the team that won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1990 while at Cadillac. He currently teaches Marketing Research at his alma mater (UC-San Diego, extension).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A marketing book, a self-promotion book, a strategic planning book for marketers. Serve your customers and promote yourself!, June 8, 2008

By 

Jeff Lippincott "JLIPPIN" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pain Killer Marketing: How to Turn Customer Pain into Market Gain (Hardcover)

I thought this book was very good. It's a self-promotion book. It's a marketing book. It's a straightforward book that could have been outlined a little better. The Table of Contents says there are two parts and 33 chapters. However, I think the 33 "topics" should have been grouped in the following 9 chapters that I just titled:

I. Provide something that has value & is in demand (2-14)

II. Make sure the customer is satisfied (15-20)

III. Provide customer service economically (21-22)

IV. Lead generation & sales (23-26)

V. Internet marketing & your Web site (27-28)

VI. Internet marketing & SEO (29)

VII. Gain credibility by writing a book (30)

VIII. Gain more credibility & exposure by delivering seminars (31)

IX. Have your employees spread the word (32)

1. Are you in pain?

2. The big equation of business

3. The small-town-movie theater example

4. Stale popcorn into fresh popcorn

5. Who else wants to turn client pain into marketing gain?

6. How to attract all the customers you need

7. Why worry about the pain of the customer?

8. Collecting the pain of the customer

9. Use the pain of the customer to write value propositions

10. How to manage consultants the pain-point way

11. The $3 million leather seat

12. Changing needs over time: The kano model

13. How do I develop good internal predictive metrics?

14. How do I test my metrics?

15. The house of quality (Quality Function Deployment)

16. How do I develop good customer-satisfaction surveys?

17. Importance versus performance

18. Satisfaction vs. excellence vs. loyalty

19. How do I know who is doing the best?

20. Is customer satisfaction enough?

21. Building your pain of the customer team

22. How do I manage my budget painlessly?

23. How do I fill your pipeline in 3 steps?

24. Cracking your marketing genetic code

25. Less hype and more help

26. The top 14 ways to generate leads

27. Your pain killer Web site

28. 5 ways to increase your persuasion power

29. Something you probably didn't know about search engines

30. To those who never dream of writing a book

31. How to stage pain killer seminars

32. Where to go next: Employees

33. Putting it all together

Chapter 1 provided a good introduction to the book. And Chapter 33 was a good conclusion. By following the advice in this book you will be able to define your business in terms of customer pains and needs. Your business will simply provide solutions to those pains and needs.

The definition of your business should start with your customer. Build a solid marketing strategy around your customers and you will probably be successful. I loved the checklist of lessons learned at the end of each chapter. And the chapters were bite-sized and easy to digest. I think I would have liked the book better if the book's chapters were the nine sections I listed earlier in this review. And the actual 33 chapters should have been made subtopics in the nine chapters I recommend. But the book is good as is. 4 stars!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can't fix the problem until you identify it!, February 25, 2009

By 

Mary Beth McCabe (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pain Killer Marketing: How to Turn Customer Pain into Market Gain (Hardcover)

Doctors want to see patients in person so they can diagnose the problem. And until they see you, they don't know what's wrong. The medical analogy to marketing rings through in Pain Killer Marketing. Most businesses don't really want to know what's wrong with them, so they avoid the truth, i.e., the pain. If we read this book and follow some simple steps about identifying the metrics, that is, what should we be measuring, then the solution is on the way.

You may be a small business, a large non-profit, or an entrepreneur with an idea: you can benefit from Chris' step-by-step examples from GM, AT&T and a local movie cinema in Michigan.

I use this book in my Practical Marketing Research classes at UCSD Extension. The students have gained a lot from the examples, and these students come from all around the globe.

I've owned a marketing firm for 16 years (Sun Marketing) and I'm hoping my clients will welcome this refreshing approach to knowing the customer needs. Then they can follow through with a faster economic recovery. I heartily recommend this book. Dr. McCabe (Doctor of Business Administration)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very practical with great focus, July 9, 2008

By 

Jerry L. Penso (San Diego) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pain Killer Marketing: How to Turn Customer Pain into Market Gain (Hardcover)

Pain Killer marketing excels in focusing on the core of business success- customers. It develops a logical, practical approach to understanding customers and delivering goods and services they will value. Teh appendix gave excellent examples. The section on the rules for developing good internal metrics for tracking and predicting success was also quite useful. I bought the book and gave it to several of our key leaders!