The Green Banana Papers: Marketing Secrets for Technology Entrepreneurs
by Chris Coleman

Written primarily for CEOs of technology startups, the concepts in this book are more widely applicable in business-to-business marketing (B2B). Chris Coleman founded the technology marketing firm Folio Z in 1986 and sold it in 2000.

“Marketing is everything you do to influence a positive buying decision—both now and a hundred years from now.”

My favorite line from the book is: “Never imitate you competitors. They don’t know what they’re doing either.”

GREEN BANANA PRINCIPLE

“Pick your buyers while they’re still green… Most RFPs are nothing but busy work. Usually the favored supplier was identified long before the RFP is issued, so if you’re not that supplier, you shouldn’t be wasting time filling in the blanks.”

“The green banana principle is simple, and it’s based on the 90/10 buying cycle. At any time, only 10% of your target market is actually evaluating products for an immediate decision. The remaining 90% have either just purchased or are somewhere on the road to purchasing/repurchasing. Your job is to reach that 90% early and often so they hear about your company and your product from as many sources as possible.”

“The point is to get in front of your best prospects while your competitors are off chasing riper deals. It takes seven to nine impressions before your company name even registers with a buyer. Once that happens you must maintain consistent, frequent contact throughout the buying cycle. The earlier and more frequently you appear, the greater your competitive advantage.”

“Most companies take a short-term view of pipeline development. Business that won’t close in 90 days doesn’t get much attention from the sales force, and the marketing department’s horizon for lead generation and qualification is usually six months or less.”

“The green banana stage is where your marketing efforts have the greatest long-term impact with the least interference from your competition.”

“This strategy won’t work for companies that can’t build a six-to-twelve-month pipeline, or for companies whose resources won’t cover anything that doesn’t generate immediate revenue. The first is a vision problem; the second is a cash flow problem. But if you’re too hungry to wait for the crop to ripen, you’re doomed to spending your days fighting over leftovers.”

SEGMENTATION

“It’s impossible for a 21st-century technology company to build market share quickly without market segmentation. No matter how well-funded your firm or how terrific your product, you do not have enough money or time to make inroads using a horizontal strategy. Target two or three vertical segments and build from there.”

“Don’t waste time figuring out how to compete in a market already dominated by a company with more than 25% share. Go vertical, go regional, or tailor your offering for an underserved segment of a larger market.”

“Your goal is to be first or second in every sector you occupy… You want the competition to be weak, scattered, or nonexistent. Segments with a clear leader, a clear challenger, and a wannabe or two in the mix are a bad bet. Forget them, no matter how lucrative they look. You can’t unseat a market leader with a conventional ‘faster, better, cheaper’ strategy, and dominance is what you’re after.”

“Find a segment where you can claim a 20% to 25% share and move to adjacent sectors as you grow. Simply put, go where your differentiator will truly be appreciated and there’s enough business to sustain your company over the long haul.”

A segment could be defined by customer size. “For some companies, a Fortune 500 account is poison.”

POSITIONING

“What’s the purpose of positioning? To identify yourself to the market you’re serving. To present yourself as the market leader. To get everyone in the market to support your position—including your competitors.”

“In this context, your job is to figure out who your product appeals to most (your target), what it will do for them (your product benefits), and why it’s superior to the current options (your differentiator).”

“A good positioning statement is short and written in everyday language, and it takes hours of intense work to reach that level of simplicity. The final document must be something that everybody inside and outside the company understands and can repeat with confidence.”

“Some marketers believe there’s one, and only one, position for any product, but I’m not among them. Don’t spend a year analyzing spreadsheets and competitive reports to pick the perfect place on the map… Perfectionists don’t win in high-growth industries. Winners get that way through initiative, unflagging focus on the buyer, and acting quickly even when they don’t have all the answers.”

For more on this topic, see Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

THE FOUR STAGES

“Human beings make purchasing decisions in four stages. Sometimes the process takes a few seconds; sometimes it takes years. The length of the cycle depends upon the product, the competitive environment, and the price point. Here’s the sequence: Attention, Credibility, Value, Decision.”

“The role of marketing is to lead prospects from one step to the next in sequence, matching the message to the buyer’s mindset at each step. This is where many technology companies, particularly in the business-to-business sector, get off track. They short-circuit the first two stages of the buying process and skip directly to step three, the value proposition. They focus on messages about features, benefits, availability, and price and ignore one key fact: nobody’s listening.”

“If all your marketing focuses on a features/benefits/value story, keep in mind that nobody’s listening yet. Don’t waste your time and money on details unless you have their attention.”

“This takes patience… Your company or product name won’t register on anybody’s radar until they hear it seven to nine times, and that’s just the beginning. Recall and recognition, the crucial first steps in brand-building, don’t reach a significant level until you have repeated a single, simple message literally hundreds of times. Consistency, clarity, and frequency are the magic words.”

For more on the topic of brand building versus sales activation, see Effectiveness in Context by Les Binet and Peter Field.

CLARITY

“Be ruthless about weeding out technobabble and weasel words… Define your value proposition simply. Do not revamp it every few months… Focus in the best protection against overcomplicated messages… Our brains grasp concrete information 30% faster than abstractions. We’re wired to reject complexity and to tune out stuff that doesn’t compute.”

“Conducting any marketing effort without a clearly articulated message is a waste of time and money.”

CONSISTENCY

“Don’t modify your message or reposition your company to align with The Next Big Thing. Confusion is deadly when you’re trying to build market share and a brand.”

“If your marketing people can’t stick to the discipline of a one-page calendar, or if you change your mind so often the calendar is useless, you’ll sacrifice the leverage that comes with consistency. Entrepreneurs are notoriously inconsistent. If that’s your management style, fine—but don’t kid yourself. This is a very expensive way to run a business.”

“Two years ago we asked a client to spend a big chunk of his creative budget one 9” x 12” illustration. Today, elements of that illustration have been used in multiple direct-mail campaigns and appear on his advertising, product packaging, web site, collateral materials—even golf shirts. When he introduces himself and his company, people say, ‘Oh yeah. You’re the guys with the walking fish.’ That’s what consistency and frequency will get you.”

AUTHENTICITY

“It means communicating the material with conviction, emotion, and a natural level of animation.”

“Young companies like to emulate the market leader, but resist this temptation… I’m not advocating weird ideas solely for shock value, nor am I promoting advertising that trivializes your product, your company, or your customer. I am urging you to have the courage to speak up, speak clearly, and express your message in your own voice.”

RULE OF 50

“This is the Rule of 50, and politicians understand it instinctively. The first 50 times they say something, nobody hears it. The second 50 times nobody understands it. The third time nobody believes it. It’s not until repetition #151 that everything clicks and people finally get it.”

“Entrepreneurs who think this rule doesn’t apply to them are wrong. Quitting too soon is the leading cause of death for marketing ROI… The first impulse for entrepreneurs who spend money on anything that doesn’t pay off quickly is to pull the plug. Resist that temptation.”

“There’s nothing about the Rule of 50 that says you have to do every repetition yourself. In fact, the goal is to make an impression on market influencers so they’ll repeat your message for you.” Note that the term influencer had a different usage when this was written, long before the term was co-opted by TikTok and Instagram shills.

NAMING

“The acid tests for a good company or product name are quite simple. Is it memorable? Will it translate into other languages or shorten to an acronym without embarrassment? Can you protect it legally? If the answer to these questions is no, keeping looking. The most unusual, descriptive, elegant name in the world is useless if people can’t remember it or somebody else owns it.”

“Real or invented words at 40% easier to remember than all-initial names.”

“99% of what goes on in a brainstorming session in junk. But it is absolutely necessary junk… There are three steps in the naming process, cliché, chaos, and true creativity.”

For more on this topic, see Brand Naming by Rob Meyerson.

WORKING WITH YOUR AGENCY

“Chemistry is critical, and so is capability. You can’t judge either one in a single meeting… As you evaluate agencies, keep in mind that’s you’re being evaluated, too.”

“To earn the respect of any creative team, give them enough clear direction to succeed and enough leeway to experiment.”

“Give the agency access to people who know things… Visit our offices now and then. Many behind-the-scenes agency people never meet the clients they serve. You’re a VIP to everyone in the firm, and seeing you in person in a treat. Visit your agency just to say hello.”

“Allow enough time to do the work right. This business is built on speed and urgency, and every agency pulls all-nighters to meet tight deadlines. But when everything is an emergency, our enthusiasm fades. It’s worse when you ask for a miracle, then complain about how much it costs.”

“Firing your agency is just like terminating an employee: if it’s a surprise, it has been mishandled. Go directly to the agency principal with the problem, give the firm a fair opportunity to remedy the situation, and if it doesn’t improve, pay your bill and move on.”

“When the same mistakes crop up over and over again, there’s an 80% chance that the problem is a procedural rather than a personnel issue. It could be within your organization, within the agency, or both.”

“The agency is the first scapegoat for internal difficulties, particularly when the client’s marketing people are over their heads.”

INDECISION

“Because most marketing environments are known for their lack of perfect information, the field can be a disaster for indecisive managers. A lot of marketing failure occurs because decisions are second-guessed and delayed until it’s too late.”

“Project costs are directly related to the number of people in the approval process. Agencies watch their clients flush staggering amounts of money down the drain at this stage, and there’s not much we can do about it.”

“Striving for perfection is wasteful. If you’re serious about spending your marketing money wisely, aim for consistency, clarity, and frequency above all, and don’t sweat the small stuff.”

SALES AND MARKETING: CLOSE THE GAP

“Expect your salespeople to make joint sales calls with people from the marketing department… For salespeople, the moment of truth is face-to-face with the buyer. For marketers, there’s often no connection between revenues and what they do every day. Once they close that gap, stand back.”

SURVEYS

“It’s easy to waste time crafting surveys… Three questions to answer before you ask anybody anything:

  • What do you want to find out?
  • Once you find out, what can you do about it?
  • Realistically, what will you do about it?”

“Send thank you notes to the customers whose comments caused you to make a change.” 

For more on this topic, see Asking for Trouble by Jon Cohen.

SIX QUESTIONS FOR YOUR MANAGEMENT TEAM

  1. “If any company were to put us out of business, who would it be?
  2. How would they do it?
  3. If our company failed tomorrow and we could overhear our competitors gossiping about it, what would they say?
  4. What would our worst employee say about our company if he/she thought we’d never hear it?
  5. What would our best employee say?
  6. If outside investors took over this business tomorrow, what would they change first?”

BRAND

“Simply put, your brand is your firm’s personality and promise to your customer. Until you’ve expressed that personality and fulfilled that promise so often, and so confidently, that your customers can articulate in their own words what you stand for, you don’t have a brand.”

“As you become more successful, competitors will preempt your own marketing messages, positions, and claims and use them against you. This is why branding is so important. Companies become associated with certain attributes in the customer’s mind over time. Pull back too soon and you only make it easier for competitors to poach on your territory.”

To learn more about brand equity, read Marketing and the Bottom Line by Tim Ambler.

WHAT’S WORKING?

“How do you decide what’s working and what isn’t? … Just pay attention to three indicators: the length of your sales cycle, your cost per sale, and the tactics in your marketing mix that yield the best return. Track all three for 12 months to establish benchmarks. In year two you’ll notice trends, and in year three you’ll have enough data to see where the potholes and the opportunities lie. Now do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.”

Coleman, Chris. The Green Banana Papers: Marketing Secrets for Technology Entrepreneurs. St. Barthelemy Press, 2001. Buy from Amazon.com

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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