CONSULTING BASICS IN WATCHMAKING
When it comes to the consultancy that companies must perform to select their clients, there are several steps and criteria to consider, which are listed below.
Customer Prospect:
1. Understand where you can help where you need help from other areas.
2. Where customers can be found
3. How to approach clients even if they do not recognize the need to which you offer consulting.
Selection of customers given various criteria:
1. Economic
2. Location
3. Accessibility
4. Philosophy
5. Needs
6. Time
7. Expectations
8. Competition
9. Capability
10. Networking
Since we have our lead, there are 5 steps we need to take to complete the process, from research to the end result:
1. Research
2. Diagnosis
3. Design
4. Production
5. Feedback
Finally, we must take into account the problem map, which will guide us because we have to take into account three things:
1. What we know about the customer, this is concrete
2. The things we take on the customer, which may or may not be true
3. The limitations we have in accessing customer information.
In the watch industry, brands perform these analysis to learn how to approach their potential customers.
When you have your customer leads, each brand knows where to find its potential customers and what brands can do for them (because the needs and lifestyle of Swatch's target audience are different from Omega's) and each brand knows, based on the needs of its customers, to offer the best marketing, price and service for them. Getting it wrong to select your target customer can make your product, however good, not reach who you're looking for and therefore sales aren't as expected.
The moment a brand knows it will launch a new collection, it takes into account the steps of the consulting methodology.
Take, for example, when Richard Mille decided to launch RM 035 (watches that cost no less than US$150,000).
1. He had to do an investigation of who his potential clients might be, as they looked, who they were looking for, and how they did it.
2. Since they had this information, they made a diagnosis of what they could do to cover those tastes of their customers.
3. They designed the product and validated it with experts on the subject, before starting production.
4. They began the production of their limited parts after having validated their idea.
5. They received feedback from their customers, and it was so good that the waiting lists to be able to buy the watch reached 4 years, and if you wanted to get ahead of yourself in line, you could pay a higher price. There were people who to have that watch in a month, paid five or six times the retail price.
For this, Richard Mille had to meet his clients, infer things from observation, assume what people were looking for to do so, and accept limitations in accessing their clients' lives.
As you can see, the validation and consulting process is long and extensive, but if the feeback is positive, it will have been worth the organization and analysis of each stage.
