 As I sat across the City Club table from Mike (whose name was changed to protect his identity), I realized the economic recovery was not yet in full swing. And the stress and strain of just making a living is affecting experts at all levels.
Mike, a 20-year veteran of organizational development and nationally-known executive coach, shared the current state of his business. I set the meeting because a mutual friend suggested we connect. As a perennial connector, I wanted to know how I could support his company’s growth. I asked him what kind of ideal client he was seeking. Mike’s response surprised me.
“Any company who will hire me.”
Really?
Mike was more stressed about his future prospects than I expected. Here’s a top notch business advisor with a established D.C. following who is lamenting the challenges of marketing in this economy. How is he coping? He is taking on government contracts at a low hourly fee. He regularly donates his keynote speeches and seminars to trade associations in hopes they will someday compensate him for his time. He’s still waiting. Sadly, he has reverted to the “hours for dollars” model that I vehemently oppose.
The pressures of coping with today’s mercurial economy has not averted professional services firms and B2B companies (except for the remoras who have attached themselves to speedboats such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter).
Riding out the recession will take more than a good product or service and a relentless commitment to marketing. It’s going to take intestinal fortitude. Here are some approaches that my best clients have taken to achieve all three:
1. Develop a written bridge plan to eliminate less than ideal clients.
Mike would serve himself well by developing a small network of less seasoned, high potential coaches and referring his clients to them while seeking out projects that bring out his gifts and talents. A conceptual bridge plan doesn’t count and seldom gets implemented. Activate your brain by documenting your plan and share it with trusted colleagues.
2. Find your center. Meditate.
My friend Steve, a brilliant 35 year business veteran and two-time CEO, meditates daily with a long hike in nature. I joined a year long mindfulness meditation group with Jonathan Faust in Washington, D.C., a city I affectionately call “the capital of human suffering.” Practice yoga. Even ten minutes a day will make a difference in how you cope with the global gravitas that surrounds us.In challenging times, over-achievers tend to over-invest in over-doing. Balance out those tendencies with some over-being time.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Administration has invested in a number of mindfulness programs to help thousands of veterans suffering from PTSD. If Western bureaucracies the size of the DVA are willing to try new modalities, why can’t you?
3. Get serious about referrals.
I am amazed by the number of seasoned executives who are afraid or ashamed to ask for them. Your clients WANT you to succeed. My recent survey of 100 business owners revealed that one of their top three challenges is generating more referral business. Nearly one-third indicated this was a serious concern. Don’t let this issue persist. Develop an outreach program to thank your past clients for their support and faith in your company’s abilities. Contact at least three clients a week. Prior to speaking with them, research their LinkedIn connections and volunteer affiliations. Then ask them for very specific introductions. Set a specific time to follow up within two weeks. This will ensure they make the promised introductions. Rinse and repeat.
Breakfast with Mike gave me a wake-up call. Let’s hope these business recovery accelerators shield you from self-proclaimed sugary social media panaceas and empty marketing calories.
Lisa Nirell helps companies grow customer mind share and market share. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Zappos, BMC Software, Adobe, Microsoft, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, FastCompany expert blogger, and author of the acclaimed EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company. Download your sample chapter and business energy booster survey at www.energizegrowth.com.
Copyright 2010, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
[Image: Google PicassaWeb]
When you can attribute a 20% revenue gain to a customer centric culture or program, you get noticed. And that’s exactly what happened to several Voice of the Customer thought leaders during the annual Allegiance Engage Summit 2011 in Deer Valley, Utah.
Jim Bampos, VP of Customer Quality at EMC Corporation, was one of the show stealers–and for good reason. Unlike many companies who talk a good game about putting customers first, EMC can prove it.
EMC dances on the leading edge of the Voice of the Customer (VoC) movement.
Click here to watch the 7 minute Jim Bampos EMC interview.
VoC programs emerged from the market research milieu. This term describes the in-depth process of capturing a customer’s expectations, preferences and aversions. Specifically, VoC systems produce a detailed set of customer wants and needs and prioritizes them in terms of relative importance and satisfaction with current alternatives. Highly evolved VOC program leaders also analyze and act upon free form customer comments from multiple sources, including call centers, salespeople, Twitter, etc.
VoC solution providers such as Allegiance, based in South Jordan, Utah, have flourished in response to the VoC movement. EMC became one of their early adopters out of necessity.
Although EMC was enjoying double digit growth, it was facing intense competition. They needed to think differently about the customer experience. Says Bampos, “We really did not understand the full customer life cycle from the time that they were made aware of our solutions to the end of life of our products. The professional services organization was the first to launch a pilot VOC program to bridge the gaps between the customers and the internal support organization.”
EMC’s VoC pilot program gained traction within two years. Since launching the VOC program, they have witnessed a 30 point Net Promoter Score improvement and over 20% revenue increase–representing hundreds of millions of top line revenue.
Other competitive industries are following suit. During her Summit keynote presentation, Bonny Simi of JetBlue also shared details about their Voice of the Customer program. “Our mission is to bring humanity back to travel. How can you know how you are doing without asking your customers?” Simi, an accomplished business strategist, Olympian and airline captain, described their palpable two year VOC journey. Simi and her team juggle 50,000 survey responses per month and 1.6 million Twitter followers. Gathering and analyzing customer data is a small piece of the VoC puzzle. She spends a great deal of time demonstrating the value and ROI of their program, as well as gaining sponsors across departments and locations.
Click here to watch the 5 minute Bonny Simi JetBlue interview.
The right survey tools can help smooth out the VoC journey, but should not precede solid branding, a customer-obsessed culture, and strong executive sponsorship. Bruce Temkin, founder of Temkin Group in Boston Massachusetts, emphasizes that companies need to master four customer experience competencies in order to become truly customer-centric: purposeful leadership, compelling brand Values, employee engagement, and customer connectedness. Temkin posits that “It turns out that companies are only as strong as their weakest link. VoC Programs are often an important tool in building the Customer Connectedness competency. We recently had more than 200 large companies complete our competency assessment and only 3% ended up at the highest level of customer experience management maturity, what we call a Customer-Centric Organization.”
After spending three days with over 300 VoC zealots, these statistics do not surprise me. The majority of companies attending the Engage Summit are still in the early stages of determining the ideal data collection and validation methods. VoC leaders still spend most of their time discussing the right listening posts, choosing the questions to ask, and debating ideal metrics to use.
Clearly, most B2B companies have a long way to go towards becoming truly customer-centric. Allegiance is clever enough to create an annual event that attracts fervent customer evangelists–half of whom are not yet their customers–to accelerate industry adoption.
If your company is considering a VoC program launch, beware of the rush to select a technology solution. First, invest the time in defining the purpose of your program. Executive support will take time. Tell people why you are embarking on the program, and how you will use the customer data once you have collected it. VoC programs typically provide these benefits:
- A detailed understanding of the customer’s requirements
- A common language for the sales, marketing and product development teams going forward
- Valuable, real time input to set appropriate design specifications for the new product or service
- A springboard for innovation.
VoC evangelists Bonny Simi and Jim Bampos have their work cut out for them. With only two years of VoC under their belts, the journey ahead will be met with some resistance. Let’s hope they focus their energies on the art of enchantment and influence, and leave the community building and tool making to market leaders such as Allegiance.
Lisa Nirell is the “Chief Energy Officer” of EnergizeGrowth® LLC. She advises B2B companies who aspire to create sustainable companies by attracting great customers. Companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Wells Fargo Advisors, and dozens of mid-market companies have worked with Lisa to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Visit www.energizegrowth.com and http://blog.energizegrowth.com to assess your company’s readiness to grow by downloading your complimentary Wealthy Company Scorecard.
Copyright 2010, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Ask any decorated leader — military or business — what keeps them focused and energized. They will echo what retired U.S. General Joseph Hoar shared with me a decade ago: a daily commitment to quietly reflect and re-evaluate our course. As world citizens discuss and debate the proper way to respond to the successful capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, we face the same opportunity.
I sat next to Joe on a flight home to San Diego, California, a few months before the September 11, 2001 attacks forever changed and heightened my global views. What struck me about Joe was his calm reserve and thoughtful presence. We enjoyed discussing world politics, his career as former Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), and the good life in Southern California.
I asked Joe one question that elicited a response which will stay with me forever. When I asked him the secret to his decades of successful military service, he said, “I dedicate time every day to quietly reflect.” This week, Joe’s simple yet profound statement became even more relevant as responses to bin Laden’s death exploded across every media channel.
Over the past 27 years, I have witnessed many forms of military exercises in the business world. They certainly d o not compare in magnitude to the events witnessed this week. But the principles and lessons in the battle for market share still apply. In the business world, these “exercises” come in two flavors:
- Defeat your competition at all costs (meaning, sell products at a loss, plant traps for your competitors, spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about their viability, etc.)
- Spend as little time as possible focusing on the competition. Instead, create an entirely new playing field. This may appear by launching a game-changing product or service, developing an untapped market, or becoming obsessively effective at customer intimacy to the point where they would never dream of switching to your competitor.
It took me several days to reflect on this momentous week. My emotions vacillated from the levity of the Royal Wedding to the gravitas of the Abbottabad compound attack. After much turmoil and contemplative thought, I realized the opportunity ahead. Not just for me, but for all business owners and leaders.
This attack represents, to some degree, closure. We have defeated a major competitor. The costs are far too great to enumerate, even though some self-anointed economists and experts will try convincing you otherwise.
We have not obliterated the Taliban, but we have at least weakened their cause considerably. We are at a crossroads: As a nation, we can continue to fan the anti-terrorist flames, mindlessly expand our military complex, and feed the Homeland Security three headed dragon. Or we can channel our immense talent, resources, and passion towards education, innovation, and creating private sector jobs — the essence of what makes American business shine.
Think back at your most recent competitive or company-wide victory. Ask yourself these questions:
- What motivated us to succeed and win? Was it fear, pride, greed, or some other fleeting vice?
- What makes our company strong? How much have we strayed from those core values and strengths to get ahead or satisfy short term investor demands?
- How can we return to our core strengths and values again?
- How do our products and solutions make the world a better place? Where are we making the greatest difference?
- Where can we re-allocate resources from firefighting and competitive battling to innovation and customer focused endeavors?
- What can we commit to stop doing so that we can make white space on our calendars for these renewed efforts?
Joe Hoar contributed the earlier half of his life to fighting the bad guys in faraway places such as Yemen, Somalia, and the Persian Gulf. Since his retirement in 1994, this spry 77 year old spends his time advising global companies and staying physically active. Joe reminds me that it is never too late to re-invent yourself and leverage your natural gifts.
For the first time in ten years, I am hopeful that the era of mass fear and terrorist-driven paranoia is over. Let’s use this historical moment to re-direct our actions and resources towards purpose-driven growth planning, global understanding, and innovation.
[Photo courtesy of wikipedia.org]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies grow customer mind share and market share. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Adobe, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
In my previous post, I shared the most common obstacles to implementing your business development and growth plans. Now that you have identified these saboteurs, and you have chosen to rally your most trusted advisors to keep you on track, how will you use their time wisely?
The EnergizeGrowth® Plan Review Process will help. I have led over 100 plan reviews in the past decade using this approach. Benefits far outweigh the time and effort you will invest. For example, teams have discovered vulnerabilities in their plans that they otherwise would have entirely missed. Within just a short time, the process gives you a holistic view of the company’s growth potential from the perspective of customers, adversaries, and senior management.
View and download the EnergizeGrowth® Plan Review Process by clicking here.
Business growth reviews take discipline–and they can also be highly rewarding. This process removes some of the fear and mystery. Let me know how yours progresses and post your comments here.
[Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies grow customer mind share and market share. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Zappos, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
As you approach the end of the first quarter of 2011, your growth plan and marketing activities are well underway. How will you keep them fresh and relevant?
Launching and implementing your growth plan entails risks. Plans often expose underlying conflicts within the organization. It may disrupt the status quo, the ways decisions are made, and strain the most established relationships among key players. How can you prevent current operating norms and B.S. (Belief Systems) from dictating, derailing, or delaying your growth plan?
The first step is to understand the main causes of plan derailment. Here are the most 9 common ones that I have observed over the past two decades:
- Lack of communication — The plan doesn’t get communicated to employees or allies who keep on working in the dark.
- Mired in the day-to-day — Managers consumed by daily operating problems lose sight of long-term goals. Today’s technical outage, employee resignation, or client emergency will happen. The question is: how well are you structured to delegate some of these emergencies to others who can handle them?
- Out of the ordinary – The plan is treated as something separate and removed from the management process.
- People perceive vision, mission and value statements as fluff. How did that limiting belief become part of your company culture?
- The plan is reviewed too infrequently to stay relevant. If you are relying on one annual retreat to review your plan, you might as well not have one. It has already become obsolete.
- Conducting business as usual after a live planning meeting. How often have you seen teams leave a
 planning session and quietly comment about “getting back to normal again?”
- Failing to make the tough choices. A solid, well thought out plan will reveal deficiencies in your team, your marketing plan, your funding, or your capacity. Are you ready to fill those gaps and relieve people who are a poor fit in the new organization? Or, do you tend to hope they will leave on their own accord? Will you need to meet with your banker and request a higher line of credit? These are challenges you must confront, not ignore.
- Lacking a scoreboard: Are you measuring what’s easy, or what is important?
- Neglecting to benchmark your company against the competition. Remember that your biggest competitors may include Inertia, Inc. and Not Invented Here.
You can overcome these common planning mishaps.
For best results, regularly share the strategic plan with other stakeholders like investors, customers, alliance partners, etc. An “open book” approach will likely generate more helpful ideas and suggestions about the future of your business.In our next post, I will show you a process to guide the reviews and turbo-charge your teams.
[Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net]
[This post originally appeared in FastCompany.]
Copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
Lisa Nirell is the Chief Energy Officer of EnergizeGrowth®. She helps companies grow customer mind share and market share. Since 1983, Lisa has worked with Trend Micro, Zappos, BMC Software, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of entrepreneurs in nine countries. Lisa is also an award-winning expert speaker, business columnist and the author of “EnergizeGrowth® NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company.” To download your five complimentary educational bonuses and sample chapter, visit www.energizegrowth.com and register for EnergizeNews.
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