FLYWHEEL AND KEEL: CLUE FOUR FOR FOUNDERS
When you're designing your business pipelines, have you ever asked yourself - what happens next? You attract and nurture and close and develop all that new business energy and... then what? What happens to all the momentum at the end of your pipeline, fizzing and popping and craving attention.
Before the 2020 epoch, customer experience and sales playbooks were already dramatically abandoning the funnel model. Good. Now the flywheel embraces the chaotic behaviour of prospects. Who draw on stories from marketing, research, sales, recruitment, investment and operations. It's a bagatelle buying process.
A new complexity, challenging ways we think? Not really, but the flywheel needs new behaviours and more considered planning.
And a constant keel to keep the messaging upright.
Flywheel and keel will usher in more client understanding - actually more partner, staff, investor and supplier understanding too - in the new era. A new life for the winners. And a slow death for the losers.
For two decades, we've seen narrative push its story towards prospects. Declining trust in an autocratic voice. The confident corporate, blindly peddling message as the audience dwindles.
Strong and clear but unlistening is gone.
The funnel is dead.
"I could do this all day."
Captain America, Captain America: Civil War, 2016
In its place, the flywheel. A constantly turning and weighty flow of content which the buyer touches on occasions as they see fit. Unpredictably.
Those touches might include in no particular order, a search engine, blogs, recruitment ads, trade body articles, webinars, a few Youtubes, some pricing pages, comparison sites, LinkedIn groups, white papers, Twitter chats and support desk messages.
How to Pivot
Your content has to discern the moments of prospects' engagement - their cycle, the occasion of their new business search or touch. It's their timeline, their pace. You just have to be ready to attract, assure, inspire, persuade, nurture, explain and convince at all the right moment.
Short, clear, emotive videos will truly make the buyer experience more enjoyable here.
And a constancy of message, simplicity and actionability, to act as a keel. To prevent fractured new business themes or tones creeping in from different teams to your messaging. To keep the messaging upright.
Flywheel and keel are bringing more thoughtful and empathetic ways of seeing the customer experience in the new era. Which offers a new life for the winners.
And slow death for the losers.
Be flywheelin' and keelin'.
What To Do Next
- Manifesto: Read our manifesto (bombshell warning)
- Comparator: Compare us with conventional solutions
- Calculator: Calculate the impact of 'flywheel and keel' for your business
